Follow Fiscal Year 2009 US budget legislation

washingtonwatch.com has a web page for following the Fiscal Year 2009 United States budget legislative process-- it follows the congressional activities for funding the operations of the federal government. FY 2009 officially begins on October 1, 2008.

Spending allocations have not yet been made; refer back to the page for regular updates, or, receive updates with their email newsletter.

President Bush signs bill then ignores crucial amendments of it

POGO (Project on Government Oversight), a federal government contracting watchdog, has reported that President Bush has actually struck out of a bill certain parts it proactively supported during the bill's Congressional legislation. President Bush feels that he has the power to sign a bill and then ignore certain parts of it through a "signing statement", a very controversial action. I provide the full text of their post on this important and critical finding:

Crucial Amendments Fall Prey to Presidential Signing Statement

In an outrageous but all-too-familiar move, President Bush has declared in a signing statement that he is entitled to ignore certain provisions of the FY 2008 Defense Authorization Bill, which he signed into law yesterday. One of these provisions would establish an independent, bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting; another would extend whistleblower protections to employees of defense contractors.

POGO strongly supported both of these provisions (see here and here), and we’re dismayed to learn that the White House now considers them to be optional.

According to the White House press release, the burdensome provisions “purport to impose requirements that could inhibit the President’s ability to carry out his constitutional obligations...The executive branch shall construe such provisions in a manner consistent with the constitutional authority of the President.”

As many reporters have pointed out, the use of presidential signing statements has increased at an alarming rate under the current administration. But should the president be allowed to selectively disregard any part of a bill that he signs into law? Senator Levin (D-MI), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CQ Today that “the courts have ruled that the president cannot pick and choose provisions of appropriations bills that [he wants] to comply with.” A blue-ribbon American Bar Association task force also found that these signing statements “undermine the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.”

-- Michael Smallberg

$219 billion federal budget deficit projected by the CBO for FY2008

The Gov Docs Guy blog reports that an increase in the federal budget deficit for 2008 is projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO):

The [CBO] projects that “after three years of declining budget deficits, a slowing economy this year will contribute to an increase in the deficit,” according to its new report, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2008 to 2018 (pdf, 1.9mb).

“Under an assumption that current laws and policies do not change, CBO projects that the budget deficit will rise to 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2008 from 1.2 percent in 2007,” the report said. That translates to an increase in the deficit from $163 billion last year to $219 billion in 2008 (see Summary Table 1). In addition, “[e]nactment of legislation to provide economic stimulus or additional funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan could further increase the deficit for this year,” the report said.