In the last months of 2011, Congress worked diligently to pass the various legislative initiatives; going by the names of mini-bus, omnibus, and continuing resolution; to fund the federal government through to September 30, 2012 and closing out the FY 2012 budget process.
In recent weeks, most of the conversation in and around the nation’s capital has been the debt ceiling and the fiscal year 2012 budget. Will Congress raise the debt ceiling? Will President Obama and the House Republican Speaker John Boehner be able to work out an agreement they can sell to their parties? Will Congress approve a 2012 budget or end up doing continuing resolutions like the 2011 budget? How big will cuts be to Medicare/Medicaid? Will there be tax increases? Even as the different parties involved draw their lines in the sand, these questions need to be answered.
ANA submitted testimony to the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies on Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 appropriations for the Title VIII Nursing Workforce Development Programs and Nurse-Managed Health Clinics.
There has been a lot of action surrounding Appropriations the last few weeks. President Obama delivered a special Valentine’s Day gift by releasing his Fiscal Year (FY) 2012 budget, and the House stayed in session into the wee hours of the morning to vote on the FY 2011 Continuing Resolution (CR). As a compromise was not in sight with the Senate regarding the CR, the House passed a two-week extension including $4 Billion in cuts by a vote of 335-91. The Senate passed the short term extension the following day be a vote of 91-9.
At the beginning of April, Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) circulated a letter in the U.S. Senate supporting $267.3 million in FY 2011 appropriations for the Title VIII Nursing Workforce Development Programs. A bipartisan group of 35 members of the Senate signed the final Mikulski/Snowe letter, which was delivered to the Senate Appropriations Committee on April 15.
