Incumbent rage leaves budgets in limbo

Treading carefully is expected slow down the budget process on the Hill even further. Details from American Banker\'s Jodi Schneider.

By Suzanne Kubota
Senior Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio.com

As the President deals with an overwhelming lack of trust in the government, the fallout has Congress on edge.

The trickledown from that nervousness is headed to your agency, says congressional expert Jodi Schneider, who’s also a senior editor in the Washington Bureau of the American Banker.

Federal News Radio asked Schneider about appropriations bills making their way through Congress for FY 2011.

That, she said, is the question “we will be exploring over the next few months.”

Schneider said a slow down was already expected because it’s a mid-term election year. Add to that what she calls the anti-incumbency feeling of the voters, and “there’s going to be a lot of concern about looking particularly like you’re giving too many earmarks.”

Treading carefully will slow down the process even further, said Schneider. “They’re going to be very cautious about what they do in the appropriations game, and I think that’s going to delay the bills… Therefore that’s going to delay the agencies knowing what kind of appropriations they’re going to get this cycle.”

As tough as it is, said Schneider, many agencies “will not know what they’re getting for the next budget maybe until the early part of next year.”

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