NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON, Kan. — Kansas First District Congressman Tracey Mann said that the Biden Administration hasn't released its 2024 budget yet, but his office will be paying attention when it does.
"That's been very frustrating that they've been slow in releasing their budget," Mann said. "It should come out any time now. Once it does, we'll parse through it and see what that looks like. Repeatedly, the last couple of years, the Biden Administration, in their budget, has been trying to do away with the stepped up basis, which would be really bad for agriculture and the ability to pass farmland from one generation to the next. In their budget is not just spending, but it's the revenue side, as well. We'll be going through it, once they release it."
The hope is that with Republicans in control in the House, where budget bills are supposed to start, that they will be able to get back to regular order and actually pass the budget bills one at a time with scrutiny, as it is intended.
"Every department, Department of Agriculture, Homeland Security, Defense, etc., they have to come forward with their budget, it goes to a committee, gets vetted, gets thinned down, should be gone through line by line, passed to the floor of the House and then, eventually passes, and that should happen 12 separate times."
That's not how it has been for the last several years.
"That doesn't happen," Mann said. "Congress doesn't do its job. Instead, all 12 bills get lumped together in this massive package that's called an omnibus, omni meaning many, these many bills get put together and jammed through. It's no way to do business. It's led to more spending than we need. We're returning to regular order, but the first start in that process, to your point, is the administration putting forward their budget for each of these departments and they need to get it to us, so we can get to work on it."
Last year, the information came out on March 28.
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