Budget and Appropriations Process for FY 2019

In practice, Congress has moved to biennial budgeting in recent years. For Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019, the budgets were set on 2/9/2018.

The normal budget process calls for the U.S. House and Senate Budget Committees to consider the Administration’s annual budget proposal and then to produce an annual budget establishing the total amount of discretionary spending for the fiscal year beginning October 1st and ending September 30th. However, the Administration submitted the Fiscal Year 2019 budget proposal to Congress on 2/12/2018, three days after the FY2019 budget was set.

Fiscal Year 2019 defense spending and non-defense spending will increase by $5 billion each over the Fiscal Year 2018 levels.

At this point, the U.S. House and Senate Appropriations Committees can begin writing the 12 appropriations bills that set the spending for the federal government.

In recent years, the 12 appropriations bills have routinely been bundled into an omnibus appropriations bill.

Appropriations bills are supposed to be completed before the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1st, but the deadlines are regularly breached, necessitating continuing resolutions (CRs) that fund government through a new deadline. Congress often needs 4 or 5 CRs per year before the final appropriations bills can be enacted.

Resources  

See the tab at the right for links the general ABA One-Pager on LSC Funding and other resources.

ABA Policy

The ABA supports a strong, federally funded, community controlled program to provide legal aid for the poor. The ABA favors substantial private bar involvement in the delivery of legal services and actively encourages pro bono participation by individual attorneys, law firms, and corporate general counsels.