One step forward, two back? Appropriations bill takes deciphering

Published: 2004-11-24

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- It's a little hard to imagine that the $388 billion worth of appropriations approved by Congress Nov. 20 still means a budget cut for more programs than those that will get increases. There were substantial funding increases for NASA, the FBI and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and extra money for specific programs such as the Women, Infants and Children nutrition program and abstinence education. In more agencies, however, the bottom line will be thinner than it was in the last fiscal year, if only due to inflation, an across-the-board reduction for most departments and a 3.5 percent salary increase for federal employees, which will come out of the agencies' overall budgets. The appropriations omnibus bill also included various provisions that really have nothing to do with money, but were added on by legislators taking advantage of the year-end rush to slip in bills that had stalled in the normal process. One provision was the Hyde-Weldon Conscience Protection Amendment, backed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and other opponents of abortion. It will protect the right of hospitals, health plans and other providers of medical care to decline to provide, pay for or refer for abortions.

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