House FY 2025 Funding Proposal Signals Likely Funding Battle

The House Committee on Appropriations released subcommittee allocations that favor defense spending over non-defense spending, cut education allocations, and set up a partisan battle guaranteed to draw-out the process into the post-election lame duck session this fall.

In setting the FY 2025 subcommittee allocations, the committee provided a $9 billion increase for defense agencies at the cost of deep cuts to non-defense agencies. The Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee allocation, which funds the student aid programs and the National Institutes of Health, took the biggest hit with a $10 billion cut to total funding. Last year, the deep cut to the subcommittee allocation resulted in the proposed elimination of funding for Federal Work-Study and Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants. It is possible that student aid programs could be on the chopping block again this year when the subcommittee marks up the bill on June 27. 

The Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA) of 2023 set spending caps for FY 2025 assuming a one percent increase over FY 2024, for both defense and non-defense programs. The House Appropriations majority interpreted the one percent increase to apply to the allocated funding levels, not the additional emergency funding or the additional $69 billion negotiated between President Joe Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) provided in the final leadership agreements for FY 2024. Democrats argue that the committee total does not meet the requirements established under the FRA because it is $76 billion below final FY 2024 spending. Democrats are calling for defense and non-defense categories to be increased by no less than one percent above FY 2024 final levels.

Meanwhile in the Senate, committee leadership acknowledges that FY 2025 spending will be tight, but they are working toward bipartisan agreement on subcommittee allocations, parity between defense and non-defense spending, and bipartisan mark ups this summer. The bipartisan approach at possibly higher levels than the House further ensures a funding battle this fall.

For more information, please contact:
Stephanie Giesecke