“The stakes of inaction are too high to not complete our work.” “It is my hope that by releasing these bills, and making clear what the priorities of Senate Democrats are, we can take a step closer toward reaching a bipartisan compromise after months of stalled negotiations,” Leahy said. That jump would be slightly larger if accounting for veterans health care costs, which lawmakers proposed moving to a different part of the budget. That left a smaller proportion for domestic agencies than the House provided and President Biden requested, though they would still see a 10% increase.
The Senate bills would provide an 8.7% boost to the Pentagon compared to the current fiscal year, far outpacing the House’s 4.6% bump. The upper chamber came closer to meeting Republican demands to increase defense and non-defense spending by equal amounts than their House counterparts.
Such a compromise has proven elusive, however, sparking Democrats to put forward their proposals without Republican support in an attempt to move the process forward. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, had held off on putting the bills forward in hopes he could strike an agreement with the minority party on top-line funding levels. Senate Democrats last week introduced the chamber's full slate of 12 bills to set line-by-line fiscal 2023 spending at every federal agency, though they remain significantly divided with Republicans over how to avoid a shutdown in just two months.
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