A Senate panel on Thursday approved a spending bill that rejects House cuts to funding for the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Senate Appropriations Committee passed a $22.4 billion bill to fund financial regulators and government operations for fiscal 2017.
{mosads}While the Senate bill cuts $1 billion from total fiscal 2016 levels, it breaks from a House counterpart that cuts $236 million and $50 million from that year’s IRS and SEC budgets, respectively.
The Senate measure dedicates $290 million of IRS funding to improvements in identity theft protection, cybersecurity and customer service. It also bars the IRS from rehiring former employees without reviewing their conduct and taxes, and targeting individuals and groups based on political or ideological beliefs.
“This legislation represents a very good effort to fund federal agencies despite budget constraints,” said Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.). “The actions of these agencies affect the day-to-day lives of Americans, which makes our funding and oversight of them important.”
Democrats applauded the lack of controversial policy riders but spoke out against funding agencies below the Obama administration’s fiscal 2017 budget request.
Funding for the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is 25 percent lower than the White House’s request, while funding levels for the SEC and Federal Communications Commission (FCC) are 10 percent and 11 percent lower, respectively.
Even so, the committee’s top Democrats supported the bill.
“I don’t love everything,” said Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), the committee’s vice chair. But “given that this is a fairly clean bill that does not include significant new authorizations or a long array of controversial poison pill riders, and meets a tough allocation with fair choices, I will support the bill.”
–Updated at 7:41 p.m. to correct a statistic.