With the massive 2021 infrastructure bill now just a distant memory, and the $1.7 trillion federal spending package for 2023 just signed by the president 10 weeks ago, the Biden Administration will release the federal budget proposal for fiscal year 2024 on Thursday, a budget that will then be taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where the fight will start all over again.
This budget will propose raises for federal employees. Unions and Democrats are lobbying for an 8.7% increase. During Biden’s last two budgets he has pushed for an amount that would be more in line with federal law, which if he does the same this year, would indicate a 5.2% pay raise. Other incentives could be added, according to a framework in law.
Federal law requires Biden to submit his budget by the first Monday in February, and he is over a month behind in following that law. He’ll lay out some of the highlights of his spending plan during a scheduled speech in Philadelphia.
Most federal spending is set through program formulas, such as Social Security and Medicare. Only about one third of the budget is discretionary, the area where Congress has some control and where the contest takes place for “who gets what.”
Already, Alaska’s Sen. Lisa Murkowski and Rep. Mary Peltola have opened web portals for Alaskans to send in their earmark requests. The deadline for community project requests is March 17, at 11:59 pm. The link to Murkowski’s earmark request page is here. Peltola’s earmark portal is at this link.
Alaska’s senators, both Republicans, are in the minority in the Senate, and Alaska’s representative, a Democrat, is in the minority in the House, which may make it more difficult for Alaska to get those coveted earmarks. Just about one-third of the budget is discretionary spending, which Congress controls through the appropriations process.
Discretionary spending is split between military sending, which is about half of all discretionary spending, and nonmilitary spending, which is infrastructure, education, and other domestic and international programs.
Because the budget will dominate the news cycle on Thursday, that may also be the day when the Biden Administration announces its decision to approve or deny Alaska’s Willow Project Master Development Plan. An announcement on that day would mean the White House wants to bury the Willow story.
Sources in Washington, D.C. say the announcement on Willow could also come late on Friday, to avoid the news media, which are thinly staffed on the weekend. President Biden and his administration are being lobbied heavily from environmental groups to deny the development plan by ConocoPhillips for a tiny corner of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska.
