129 Members Stand United: Budget Agreement Must Support both Defense and Non-Defense Programs

WASHINGTON, DC—Over 120 members of the Democratic Caucus today called for any Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 budget agreement to fund both defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) programs at adequate levels. The indiscriminate, deeply harmful sequestration budget cuts have gutted many NDD programs, compounding the reductions to their budget that have taken place over the past five years.

The letter to Speaker John Boehner and Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, led by Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro (D-CT), senior Democrat on the Labor-Health and Human Services-Education Appropriations Subcommittee; Congressman Chris Van Hollen, senior Democrat on the Budget Committee; and Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA), senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee; can be viewed here.

“We urge you to replace sequestration with a balanced approach that takes into account the deep cuts that NDD programs have already incurred since 2010,” they wrote. “Further, we urge you to ensure such sequestration relief is equally balanced between NDD and defense programs, in keeping with the previous two bipartisan agreements to provide sequestration relief.

“While the FY 2016 bills drafted by the House and Senate Appropriations Committees comply with the existing insufficient NDD cap, the defense bill uses a gimmick to fund defense programs above the defense cap,” they continued. “The non-defense bills demonstrate the inadequacy of the sequestration funding levels. With the exception of a limited number of increases for select programs, the bills impose harmful cuts to other programs. The unrealistically tight caps result in underfunding key areas such as education, public health, infrastructure investments, housing and community development, job training, aid to state and local law enforcement, and many other important programs.”

Previous sequestration relief has been provided equally to defense and non-defense discretionary program. The President’s FY2016 budget was consistent with that paradigm and proposed equal relief to defense and non-defense discretionary programs.


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