On December 18, Congress approved a $1.15 trillion omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the federal government for the rest of fiscal year 2016. The vote in the House was 316-113 and the vote in the Senate was 65-33. President Obama has indicated he will sign the bill shortly.
Below are links to two charts showing how programs of interest to our constituents fared. The first includes the budget numbers for FY’ 16 and compares them with FY’ 15. The second provides funding trends over the past three fiscal years to give some historical perspective. You will notice that generally across the board, our programs were either level funded or received small increases. This has become a mantra in recent years, but the fact that our interests survived intact should be considered a victory in this budget climate.
Of particular note is level funding for the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC). The original appropriations bill considered in the House Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee would have cut NHPRC’s FY’ 16 budget by 40 percent from the FY’ 15 level of $5 million to $3 million. The situation allowed NCH to use the contacts gained from the History Caucus, and the cut was rescinded at the House Appropriations Committee markup. The NHPRC was only program in the entire bill to have funding restored.
