Tag: Hal Rogers

Budget Deal Passes, but Shutdown Threat Still Looms

Budget Deal Passes, but Shutdown Threat Still Looms

By Eric Katz; October 30, 2015Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, hopes the deal will provide agencies with more stability.

Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, hopes the deal will provide agencies with more stability. J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

The Senate on Friday passed a budget framework to set spending levels for the next two years, but lawmakers have yet to complete their work for funding federal agencies.

The bipartisan deal, which passed with near unanimous support from Democrats but only a minority of Republicans in both chambers, raises sequester caps by $80 billion over fiscal years 2016 and 2017. While the deal sets the top-line spending levels, Congress must still write and pass line-by-line appropriations to establish funding levels for each agency.

Lawmakers normally would pass 12 individual bills to fund each area of the federal government, but the Dec. 11 deadline virtually assures that Congress will instead approve a sweeping, all-inclusive omnibus measure. President Obama expressed optimism the budget deal, which his administration negotiated directly with congressional leadership, would avoid the fiscal showdowns that have plagued the funding process and left agencies in the lurch in recent years.

 

Continue reading “Budget Deal Passes, but Shutdown Threat Still Looms”

Boehner, Mikulski among omnibus winners

January 17, 2014, 06:00 am

Boehner, Mikulski among omnibus winners

 

By Erik Wasson

The Senate’s approval Thursday night of a $1.1 trillion omnibus spending bill finally put to bed the government’s budget for 2014. 

 

Winners

Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.)

The biggest winner of the omnibus is the appropriations chairman who negotiated it and was rewarded with 359 votes on the floor.

Rogers opposed October’s government shutdown and has long argued winning conservative policy goals in a divided government is better achieved through negotiation rather than threats. With the omnibus, he has proof.  Continue reading “Boehner, Mikulski among omnibus winners”

$1.1 trillion spending bill unveiled

$1.1 trillion spending bill unveiled
By: David Rogers
January 13, 2014 08:08 PM EST

The Capitol is pictured. | AP PhotoHouse-Senate negotiators rolled out a $1.1 trillion spending bill Monday night — a giant package that fills in the blanks of the December budget agreement and promises to restore some order to government funding over the next year.

Under pressure from Republicans, the measure keeps a tight rein on new funding for Wall Street regulators and effectively freezes appropriations for President Barack Obama’s health care program at the reduced, post-sequester level.

But the White House retains the flexibility to find the financing it needs to implement the health exchanges and appears satisfied to have avoided the most contentious restrictions proposed by conservatives.

(Also on POLITICO: What’s in the $1.1T government spending bill?) Continue reading “$1.1 trillion spending bill unveiled”

Budget Deal Optimism Emanates From Top House Appropriator

Budget Deal Optimism Emanates From Top House Appropriator

By Emma Dumain Posted at 5:05 p.m. on Dec. 3

rogers 018 070913 445x296 Budget Deal Optimism Emanates From Top House Appropriator

Rogers is not preparing a fallback plan in case budget conferees fail to reach a deal. (Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

House Appropriations Chairman Harold Rogers said Tuesday that he is “somewhat optimistic” that the members of a bipartisan, bicameral budget conference committee will deliver on a broad spending agreement by their Dec. 13 deadline.

Fearing a broad budget deal might ultimately elude conferees, House GOP leaders are reportedly mulling a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government through Jan. 15, when the current CR expires — but the Kentucky Republican doesn’t think that will be necessary. Continue reading “Budget Deal Optimism Emanates From Top House Appropriator”

Good Grief! How Did We End Up on the Verge of Another Government Shutdown?

Good Grief! How Did We End Up on the Verge of Another Government Shutdown?

SOURCE: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Hal Rogers (R-KY) testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington

By Scott Lilly | September 30, 2013

It’s almost unbelievable that only 18 years after the disastrous shutdown of 1995, the federal government is on the brink of another shutdown. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-KY) presented the House floor on Saturday with the legislation that sealed the country’s fate—legislation that he and his party’s top leadership argued against for weeks.

Rep. Rogers, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), and House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), however, argued that shutting down the government over Obamacare would not go down well with the American people. In fact, Speaker Boehner went so far as to order a poll during the August congressional recess in an attempt to drive home the disastrous consequences of the strategy being pushed by the most extreme elements of the Republican Conference.

But all of that failed. The inmates were clearly in charge of the institution, and Rep. Rogers was left with the task of making the motion for the House to consider the flawed product that had been crafted largely by the backbenchers in his party. The chairman stoically sought recognition to make his motion, but he then proceeded to use his debate time more to lecture the faction in the party that had put him in this unfortunate position than to argue the substance of the bill he was asking the House to adopt. Continue reading “Good Grief! How Did We End Up on the Verge of Another Government Shutdown?”