Head Start gets cash infusion in new federal budget

(AP) - Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill Monday unveiled a $1.1 trillion spending bill funding the so-called discretionary budgets of every federal agency and program...

Adam Howard

Jan 14, 2014

Top lawmakers on Capitol Hill Monday unveiled a $1.1 trillion spending bill funding the so-called discretionary budgets of every federal agency and program. Those are the daily operating budgets — as opposed to big autopilot programs like Social Security and Medicare — that comprise about one-third of the overall budget.

Highlights include:

—$1.012 trillion in agency funding to restore $45 billion in automatic cuts otherwise required under budget “sequestration” required by Washington’s failure to enact an earlier deficit-cutting deal.

—$487.4 billion in funding for the Pentagon’s “core” budget, permitting a 1 percent pay increase for Pentagon military and civilian workers, partial restoration of cuts to readiness and procurement accounts, and a “fix” to exempt widows and working-age disabled veterans from recently enacted pension cuts.

—$92 billion in additional Pentagon and State Department funding for overseas military and diplomatic operations principally related to the war in Afghanistan.

—Funding to implement President Barack Obama’s new health care and financial services laws, though not at levels sought by the White House.

—Restoration of many domestic agency budgets from automatic, across-the-board cuts imposed last year.

—No relief for some agencies, like the Internal Revenue Service and the Transportation Security Administration, from the automatic cuts.

—Healthy increases for the Head Start early learning program for the poor, Western firefighting programs, high-priority transportation infrastructure projects, and veterans’ medical care.