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Link Turn – General – Christmas TreePlan is supplemental spending – wont trade-off and allows congress to fund other projects Fox 11 (http://politics.foxnews.mobi/quickPage.html?page=24841&content=52209500&pageNum=-1) JPG There's a series of natural disasters. Or 9-11. Or war. And Congress decides it needs to approve an additional spending bill to fund a critical area of the federal government in mid-year. Lawmakers fillet the federal budget into 12 sections, each one receiving an annual spending measure. But over the past 11 years, Congress has approved 16 extra spending bills, known as "supplementals," totaling nearly $1 trillion. $20 billion just after September 11th. $79 billion in 2003 for the war in Iraq. $10.5 billion in 2005 to respond to Hurricane Katrina. And in each case, some lawmakers make a compelling case for tacking on additional spending. It's essential for the troops. The people of New Orleans are desperate. And on Tuesday afternoon, the process started again. Rep. Robert Aderholt (R-AL) chairs the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. That panel controls the purse strings for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). Twisters ravaged parts of Aderholt's district and other sections of Alabama just a few weeks ago. Then came floods, up and down the Mississippi River. The federal government even blew up a major levee in Missouri to alleviate upstream flooding. And then a monster tornado sacked Joplin, MO, Sunday night. "It's going to be close," said Aderholt, when asked if FEMA had enough money to make it through September 30, the end of the government's fiscal year. On Tuesday, the House Appropriations Committee "marked-up" or wrote the final version of a measure to fund Homeland Security programs and FEMA. No one has tallied the cost of the storms in Alabama. There's no price tag on the flooding. And it's way too early to ring up the damages in Missouri. But Aderholt and others wanted to make sure FEMA had enough money for now. So during the markup session, lawmakers from both sides of the aisle injected $1 billion into FEMA's budget. Aderholt and others believe that on top of the $1 billion, they'll also have to craft an entirely separate supplemental spending bill to pay for the natural disasters. And perhaps those yet to come. "Hurricane season is just days away," warned Aderholt ominously. Not a single lawmaker expressed reservation and the Appropriations Committee adopted Aderholt's request by voice vote. There's a reason why no one objected. This year, it's flooding and tornadoes in the South and Midwest. But come summertime, it could be hurricanes in Florida and North Carolina. Or earthquakes in California. Wildfires in the west. Fiscal hawks are loathe to vote against such emergency measures. First, they want to help those in need. And second, they know their district or state could be next. Now here's where it gets interesting. In tight budget times, lawmakers are intent to find "pay-fors" to cover the additional costs of the natural disasters. In the case of the $1 billion for FEMA, the Appropriations Committee transferred unused funds from an Energy Department "green vehicle" program. Still, this money is not for NEXT fiscal year. It's for THIS fiscal year. The fiscal year for which Congress and President Obama just finished doing battle. The fiscal year where Republicans successfully pared $61 billion out of the budget. An alternative interpretation, but inaccurate interpretation of Tuesday's $1 billion FEMA infusion means the budget deal dwindled to just $60 billion. That's they way it would appear on a balance sheet if you're scoring at home. But if you're scoring in Congress, it doesn't work that way. Congress considers FEMA's $1 billion as an emergency. By definition, all emergency money is "off-budget." It's real dollars and cents going out the door. But Congress doesn't count it against the bottom line. It's kind of like a pitcher's Earned Run Average (ERA) in baseball. If a pitcher yields a run, it counts on the scoreboard. However, if someone committed an error that allowed that run to score, it's not marked against the pitcher's ERA. Regardless, the run crossed the plate and shows up on the scoreboard. Spending is spending. And a budgetary gimmick like this is precisely what so incensed the electorate last fall. Now there's a question of forging a supplemental spending bill once all of the disasters are paid for. Aderholt has talked about the need for an additional spending bill to cover FEMA. And he's not the only one. "$1 billion isn't going to do it," conceded Rep. David Price (D-NC), the top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee. "We are going to need the administration to offer a supplemental request." House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) knows how sensitive this is. "If there is support for a supplemental, it would be accompanied by support for having pay-fors to that supplemental," said Cantor on Monday. Link Turn – Intra-NASA – InsulationNASA funding is popular for major programs Achenbach 10 (Joel, Washington Post writer, 2/2/10, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/01/AR2010020102145.html) JPG Change does not come easily in the complex and highly political enterprise that is space travel. The Obama plan triggered immediate protests on Capitol Hill. "The president's proposed NASA budget begins the death march for the future of U.S. human spaceflight," Sen. Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala.) said Monday. "If this budget is enacted, NASA will no longer be an agency of innovation and hard science. It will be the agency of pipe dreams and fairy tales." Rep. Pete Olson (R-Tex.) said, "This is a crippling blow to America's human spaceflight program." Major programs are insulated from drastic cuts – if they don’t have enough funding they’ll be compensated Berger 5 (Brian, writer @ space.com, 1/10/5, http://www.space.com/652-nasa-budgetary-authority-shift-funds-exploration-vision.html) JPG If NASA plans to cancel any programs this year, it is not clear from the operating plan. In fact, most major programs in development were insulated from all but fairly minor cuts. But there were exceptions. NASA cut $24 million of the $163 million it had planned to spend on in-space power and propulsion projects. Similarly, the X-43 hypersonic demonstrator program that Congress hopes to keep flying with a $25 million cash infusion, is not funded in the operating plan. Some of NASA's small spacecraft programs also fare worse in the operating plan. The New Millennium program, which has struggled in recent years to find launch opportunities for the experimental payloads it develops, would have its $82 million request cut back to $66 million. Additionally, the $96 million requested for NASA's Explorer program for low-cost, competitively selected science missions, would be cut back to $71 million. Still, some NASA projects got additional money above what they asked for last February. In most cases the increases were to cover technical setbacks and schedule delays. For example, NASA plans to add $15.2 million to Deep Impact's budget to pay for technical problems that threatened the comet hunter's unforgiving one-month launch window. The spacecraft is slated to launch Jan. 12. NASA is also adding $3.1 million to the Swift gamma ray burst mission to pay bills still coming in from last year's launch delay. 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