Mar. 4, 2021

Republicans Call on President Biden to be Forthcoming on Budget Release Timeline

House Budget Committee Republicans Call on President Biden to be Forthcoming on Budget Release Timeline

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, House Budget Committee Republicans sent a letter to President Biden highlighting concerns with his Administration’s failure thus far to provide its budget proposal for Fiscal Year (FY) 2022. The letter further requests that the President share with Congress when his Administration plans to submit its FY22 budget.
 
“Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a nearly $2 trillion bailout bill disguised as emergency COVID-19 response funding,” wrote House Budget Committee Republicans. “With your Administration on the verge of enacting such levels of spending, it is of vital importance that you release the Fiscal Year (FY) 2022 President’s budget request as expeditiously as possible. As members of the House Committee on the Budget, we ask that you, at the very least, tell the American people when they can expect to see a budget from your Administration.”
 
The letter notes that – as anticipated in a letter from House Budget Committee Republican Leader Smith to Ted Kaufman of the Biden Transition Team in January 2021 – the Biden Administration is inappropriately trying to deflect blame onto the previous Administration for its failure to produce a budget by the February deadline in statute. It also highlights that the most recent information on when the White House will release a budget can be found in media reports that project a mid-to-late April timeline. “If true, that will be the latest an administration will have ever released its budget,” wrote House Budget Committee Republicans. “Of course, the American people should not have to rely on speculation in the press. The Administration should be forthcoming with its timeline to release a budget.”
 
At points throughout the letter, House Budget Committee Republicans highlight the importance of having a budget from the President as soon as possible given that both the Administration and Democrats in Congress have discussed or proposed various sweeping policies that “would harm working-class Americans and cause job losses, less economic opportunity, and the prospect of painful tax increases. That is why it is incumbent upon your Administration to be transparent with the American people.”

Read the full letter here.