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On March 13, Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) released her budget resolution for Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, which sets overall federal spending levels for Senate appropriators as they begin working on appropriations bills later this spring. Senator Murray’s budget includes new investments in job training programs, and would cancel sequestration.
Senator Murray’s budget features a $100 billion jobs and infrastructure package that includes $10 billion in investments in worker training programs for youth and adults. Investments will be targeted at programs that have demonstrated effectiveness in training workers for jobs and meeting the needs of employers struggling to find qualified workers to fill open positions. NSC supports the committee’s efforts to increase federal investments in our nation’s workers.
Importantly, the budget resolution would cancel all nine years of sequestration, halting drastic cuts to job training programs from taking effect. It does this by including a $1.85 trillion deficit reduction package that reduces the deficit by using a combination of revenue and spending cuts, including $142 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary (NDD) programs. NDD cuts would be achieved by maintaining the current caps on spending that were implemented under the 2011 Budget Control Act.
The budget resolution also provides for an increase in the FY 2014 maximum Pell grant award. By comparison, the House budget resolution would freeze the maximum Pell award at its current level for FY 2014 and would not provide for further increases in the maximum award going forward.
The Senate Budget Committee will “mark-up” the budget resolution on March 13 and 14. The bill is expected to be reported out of committee, and could reach the floor as soon as next week.
NSC will continue to provide updates on the Senate budget resolution as they become available.
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