CONGRESS CONSIDERS FY’21 SPENDING, DON’T LOOK IN THE DEFICIT ANXIETY CLOSET

The House DOD Appropriations Subcommittee voted to allocate $694.6 billion in “on-budget” defense spending for Fiscal Year 2021, plus another $68.4 billion for “contingency operations.”  That total is not drastically different from last year’s figure and must now be reconciled with the Senate.  In the meantime, House appropriators are seeking nearly $250 billion in increased discretionary spending for a host of domestic programs, including transportation, housing, and infrastructure spending.  While the package is meeting resistance from Republicans, it is likely that some level of increased spending will be enacted.  Few members, after all, would like to face voters during the COVID-19 pandemic and try to justify not spending money viewed by many as necessary to address the resultant health and economic impacts.  While final spending totals won’t be known until this fall, at the earliest, Congressional action on a host of FY’21 spending measures now is starting to provide a clearer picture of the type of market contractors could expect.  The additional money could ultimately be a “win-lose” scenario, though, as the bill for all of the additional spending will come due.  Some readers may recall the comic strip Bloom County that had an anxiety closet where monsters lived.  The federal spending version of this is the Congressional Budget Office report issued this week showing that the budget deficit for June of this year was $863 billion, 10 times what it was for June 2019, and larger than the entire deficit for 2019 itself.  While extra money means increased business opportunities in the short term, contractors can expect reduced spending numbers and higher tax burdens, perhaps starting as early as 2022.  It is never too early to prepare for riding out the next storm.