1. The Federal Budget Process
Amirah Sequeira, Mythili Prabhu
SGAC National Conference
February 2013

2. What is the Budget Process?
• Determines the total amount of money
that the federal government spends for
one year
• It also determines what programs get
funded for that year, and at what level.

3. Key Actors
• Senate and House Budget Committees:
– Decide on an overall cap (or ceiling) for the
entire budget, and suggest overall
spending for each federal account.
• Senate and House Appropriations
Committees:
– Decide how much funding is going to each
program funded by the federal budget.

4. Key Actors
• State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs Subcommittee
– Subcommittee of the appropriations
committee.
– They decide how much money will be
spent on our programs of interest:
PEPFAR, Global Fund, and others.

5. Budget Timeline
• Budgets run on the fiscal year timeline.
The Fiscal Year begins on October 1st
and ends September 30th.
• The budget process begins in
December of the previous year, when
the President’s office begins preparing
his budget request.

6. Budget Timeline
• February  President submits budget
request
– Legally required to submit budget by
February 4th, but will be submitted later this
year.
– Budget includes suggested spending for
every federal program.

7. Budget Timeline
• After the Budget is submitted, the
budget committee of the House and the
Senate set a budget cap (usually over
$3 trillion) for the whole budget, and
suggests spending levels for each
“account”
– Foreign aid is the “150 account”

8. Budget Timeline
• March  All members of the House and
Senate submits their “wish-list” to the
appropriations committee chairs.
– Wish lists are a list of all programs that the
legislator wants funded.
– This is REALLY IMPORTANT FOR US. We
need legislators to put Global AIDS funding
on their wish lists.

9. What are the Subcommittees?
• Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and
Related Agencies
• Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies
• Defense
• Energy and Water Development and Related Agencies
• Financial Services and General Government
• Homeland Security
• Interior, Environment and Related Agencies
• Labor, Health and Human services, Education and Related Agencies
• Legislative Branch
• Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies
• State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs
• Transportation, Housing and Urban Development and Related
Agencies

10. Budget Timeline
• Sub-committees of the House and Senate
Appropriations Committees hold hearings to
decide on the level of funding for their
programs.
• Hearings normally happen between February and
April.
• Chairman of each sub-committee puts forth
his/her suggestion for funding levels. This is
called the “chairman’s mark”

11. Budget Timeline
• Following the Chairman’s “mark”, his
proposal is debated and discussed
within the subcommittee. The resulting
proposal is called the “Chairman’s
Mark-Up”.
• The proposal is then sent to the full
appropriations committee to be voted
on.

12. Budget Timeline
• After the appropriations committee votes on
the sub-committee budget, it goes to the full
chamber to be passed.
• The conference committee, made up of the
leadership of both the house and senate, and
the appropriations committees, reconcile their
12 subcommittee budgets together.

13. Budget Timeline
• The full chamber then gets to vote on
each of the 12 subcommittee budgets.
• Once each budget passes through the
chamber (with at least half of the votes),
the bill is sent to the President to sign
into law.

14. Budget Timeline
• What is an Omnibus Bill?
– When the senate or house cannot find
enough votes to pass each individual
subcommittee budget, the Appropriations
Committee Chairs will create a combined
proposal for one large budget. Instead of
voting on individual bills from each sub-
committee, the chamber then votes on
ONE all-inclusive bill.

15. Budget Timeline
• The full chamber must agree upon a
budget by September 30th.
• If they don’t, they need to pass a
“continuing resolution” to extend their
deadline. Funding for programs would
continue at previously agreed upon
levels.

16. Important Targets
• Senate Budget Committee
– Chairman: Patty Murray (D-WA)
– Ranking member: Jeff Sessions (R-AL)
• House Committee on Budget
– Chairman: Paul Ryan (R-WI)
– Vice-Chairman: Scott Garrett (R-NJ)
– Ranking Member: Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)

17. Important Targets
• House Committee on Appropriations:
– Chairman: Hal Rogers (R-KY)
– Ranking Member: Nita Lowey (D-NY)
• Senate Appropriations Committee
– Chairman: Barbara Mikulski (D-MD)
– Vice-Chairman: Thad Cochran (R-MI)

18. Important Targets
• State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs (House Appropriations
Subcommittee)
– Chairwoman: Kay Granger (R-TX)
– Vice-Chair: Charles Dent (R-PA)
• State, Foreign Operations, and Related
Programs (Senate Committee on
Appropriations, Subcommittee)
– Chair: Patrick Leahy (D-VT)
– Ranking member: Lindsey Graham (R-SC)

19. Important Targets
• YOUR LEGISLATORS!

20. What do we want?
• In FY2013:
– Maintain the House level for PEPFAR at
$4.242 billion
– Maintain Senate level for Global fund at
$1.65 billion
• In FY2014:
– Protection and expansion of PEPFAR at
$5.027 billion

21. Intel on the President’s
Budget
• Administration has proposed:
– a 5% CUT to PEPFAR
– A decrease in $300 million for the Global
Fund (form last year’s request)