Update: FY22 Senate Appropriations
On Tuesday, the Senate Democrats released the remaining FY22 appropriations bills. None of these nine bills are expected to be marked up in subcommittee or full committee and no other action by the Senate is expected. The Senate bills lay out benchmarks for a conference with the House. Senate Democrats would set aside $778 billion for the Pentagon and other security-related agencies: a 5 percent increase over FY21 and would match the bipartisan NDAA (defense act) legislation. Spending on domestic and foreign aid programs would increase by more than 13 percent. Those numbers are a departure from the Biden Administration's budget request, which proposed a 1.6 percent increase for defense and 16.5 percent more for nondefense programs, and the House spending bills, which largely adhered to those numbers. Republicans have called for equal increases for defense and non-defense spending. Senator Shelby, ranking member of the Committee stated the Democrats' bills "fail to give equal consideration to our nation's defense" and are "filled with poison pills and problematic authorizing provisions.”