House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers today issued the following statement on the release of the President’s Fiscal Year 2017 budget request.

“The President’s final budget unfortunately doesn’t look much different than other years – it is a spending wish list that doesn’t reflect our real budgetary constraints and that would saddle hard-working Americans with additional taxes and fees.

“The job of the Appropriations Committee is now to scrutinize this request. We will hold extensive oversight hearings and briefings to make informed, thoughtful, line-by-line funding decisions. At the end of the day, the ‘power of the purse’ lies with the Congress – not the White House – and we will use that power to decide what to cut and what to fund. We are going to hit the ground running with this work – holding our first budget hearings tomorrow – so that we can bring our Appropriations bills to the floor in regular order and in record time.

“My Committee intends to produce bills that abide by the budget caps set into place by the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2015 – a total of $1.070 trillion in discretionary spending. But most importantly, they will be fiscally responsible, reflecting the needs of our federal government and the American people while protecting our financial future."

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