Budget News Is Bad

The chairmen of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees have released their proposed continuing funding resolution for fiscal year 2007. Hidden inside this lengthy document is §20645(a), which calls for a Social Security budget of $9.137 billion. The President's budget for FY 2007 had called for a $9.496 billion budget for Social Security's administrative operations. Even that much higher budget would have resulted in a loss of 2,545 full time staff positions. The actual FY 2006 budget was $9.109 billion, as best I can tell, which would indicate only a 1% increase for FY 2007 over FY 2006. The FY 2006 level was the funding level provided in the last continuing funding resolution and that was predicted to require furloughing all Social Security employees for 10 days. Is $28 million more enough to prevent employee furloughs at Social Security? Certainly, it is not enough to prevent significant further deterioration in service at Social Security. There may be efforts made to amend this continuing resolution, either in committee or on the floor of the Senate. Everything must all happen rapidly, since the current continuing funding resolution runs out on February 15.