Budget Markup Coming Tomorrow

The House Budget Committee will be marking up its version of the concurrent budget resolution for fiscal year 2009, which begins on October 1, 2008, on March 5. The concurrent budget resolution does not give any agency any money. The appropriations bills do that. The budget resolution sets general guidelines for the appropriations process. A markup session is an opportunity for committee members to propose changes in the budget resolution, but that begs the question of what the Budget Committee will use as a starting point. We can expect to see a "chairman's mark," a version of the budget resolution prepared by the House Budget Committee chairman, John Spratt, to use as a starting point for the markup session.