HR 8580 Passed in House – FY 2025 MilCon Spending

Yesterday, the House finished their consideration of the first FY 2025 spending bill, HR 8580, the Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2025 (MilCon Spending), passing the bill by a near party-line vote of 209 to 197 with 25 members not voting. While President Biden has threatened to veto this bill because of “partisan policy provisions”, the bill will probably undergo serious revisions when (if) it is considered in the Senate.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has yet to draft any of the 12 spending bills, but the language of the Senate MilCon spending bill will form the basis for the substitute language that will be considered in the Senate. When (if) that amended bill is passed in the Senate, it will have to go to a conference committee to work out a compromise version that can pass in both houses.

Commentary

It is good to see the House move a spending bill to completion this early. Normally that would forebode a good chance for at least some spending bills to make it to the President’s desk before the start of the fiscal year. However, the strong push by the Republican leadership to include deal preventing policy provisions in the bill shows that the leadership still (even after last year’s spending mess) thinks that they can force the Democrats in the Senate and White House to acquiesce to their policy demands. Either that, or this is a purely political ploy to fire up their base for November’s election. In either case I am sanguine about the chances of any spending bills passing before the election; maybe we will get a continuing resolution to keep the government underfunded.

On the plus side (I am reaching here), they did manage to formulate and approve a rule for the consideration of the bill in the Rules Committee and pass that rule on the Floor of the House. They could not always get that done last year. Of course, they did it by pandering to the fringe. It will be interesting to see if they can play grownup politicians and move something to the President’s desk.