Social Security Administration urging budget anomaly to avoid ‘devastating’ impacts

The Social Security Administration is ringing alarm bells over what would be “devastating” impacts of flat agency funding, as Congress looks to hammer out a continuing resolution by the end of the month and avoid a government shutdown. During a hearing Wednesday, SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley urged lawmakers on the Senate Budget Committee to include the White House’s full fiscal 2025 budget request of $ 15.4 billion for SSA operations as a budget anomaly in the case of a stopgap spending agreement. Currently, SSA is operating under a budget of…

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House Republicans lead $3B VA supplement to fix year-end budget shortfall

House Republicans are leading a supplemental funding bill to address a multi-billion-dollar budget crunch at the Department of Veterans Affairs. Leaders of the House Appropriations and House VA committees introduced a bill Friday that would give the VA $ 3 billion to ensure the department can keep paying benefits to veterans for the rest of the fiscal year. The Veterans Benefits Continuity and Accountability Supplemental Appropriations Act would ensure the VA has enough funding to keep paying veterans’ compensation, pension and readjustment benefits for the rest of fiscal 2024. The…

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For 2025 budget request, federal IT prioritizing AI, CX

The White House is seeking the smallest increase in spending on federal civilian IT since 2013, when the technology budget actually dropped. The $ 75.1 billion request for fiscal 2025, however, isn’t pushing the same old, same old. It’s clear the Office of Management and Budget is telling agencies to make even more strategic investments in Biden administration priorities around artificial intelligence and customer experience. “The administration is focused on understanding where agencies are on their information technology (IT) modernization journeys, determining the right investments to support secure technology integration…

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Military construction budget prioritizes housing, shipyard infrastructure

The Defense Department is slated to receive $ 2 billion for family housing, an increase of $ 30 million above the President’s budget request, to start remediating deteriorating conditions of military installations that have been plagued by mold, pests and toxic waste, among other problems.  Congressional leaders rolled out the fiscal 2024 spending “minibus” over the weekend, placing particular emphasis on funding quality-of-life programs, including improving what they have long called “substandard” and “unacceptable” living conditions of military housing facilities.  “This is disgusting, this is unsatisfactory. Would any of you want…

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What will happen now that Congress bought itself a week or two on the budget?

It is not what contractors or most federal employees wanted, but Congress did manage to avoid a partial government shutdown last week. They only pushed the deadline out a week or two, in order to buy time to consider budget bills. For the outlook on the week ahead, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with Bloomberg Government Deputy News Director Loren Duggan. Interview Transcript:   Tom Temin  And, Loren, before all of this, of course, we have been going back and forth with the fact that the bills are out…

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Congress labors to keep the budget deal alive

The continuing resolution funding the government runs out Friday at 11:59 p.m. So far the spending limits Republicans and Democrats agreed to, a week or so ago, have not translated into bills for full 2024 appropriations. That means neither a long-term continuing resolution nor a shutdown is off the table. For the latest, the Federal Drive with Tom Temin spoke with WTOP Capitol Hill correspondent Mitchell Miller. Interview Transcript:    Mitchell Miller Right now things are looking better, but things were not looking good heading into the weekend. But during…

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