Veterans, farm and food safety spending bills cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday even as Republicans charged Democrats with overstepping last December’s budget accord to fund domestic priorities.
From white potatoes to Pacific salmon and even cigars, the nearly three-hour meeting had a bit of everything. And behind the scenes, first lady Michelle Obama pushed — with some success — for last-day compromises protecting nutrition standards for children.
For Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), it was a rockier start than she might have hoped given the need for GOP support to move the annual spending bills across the Senate floor this summer.
But the budget disputes with her ranking Republican, Alabama Sen. Richard Shelby, pale next to the battles of the past four years. And after their early sparring, Shelby and Mikulski joined in support of the two underlying bills funding the Departments of Veterans Affairs and Agriculture.
Indeed, Thursday’s meeting represented an early start for the committee and Mikulski laid out an ambitious schedule of drafting all of the 12 annual bills by early July. It seems very unlikely that the full Senate will move this fast on the floor. But both the VA and agriculture measures could be used down the road to expedite larger deals encompassing other appropriations as well.
Both Mikulski and her House counterpart, Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), are obliged under the December agreement to hold discretionary spending to $1.014 trillion for the new fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
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