Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) FY2018 Appropriations: Overview

Summary

The Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) appropriations bill includes funding for the Department of the Treasury, the Executive Office of the President (EOP), the judiciary, the District of Columbia, and more than two dozen independent agencies. The House and Senate FSGG bills fund the same agencies, with one exception. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) is funded through the Agriculture appropriations bill in the House and the FSGG bill in the Senate. This structure has existed since the 2007 reorganization of the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations.

President Trump submitted his FY2018 budget request on May 23, 2017. The request included a total of $45.2 billion for agencies funded through the FSGG appropriations bill, including $250 million for the CFTC.

The House Committee on Appropriations reported a Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 3280, H.Rept. 115-234) on July 17, 2017. Total FY2018 funding in the reported bill would be $42.5 billion, with another $248 million for the CFTC included in the Agriculture appropriations bill (H.R. 3268, H.Rept. 115-232). The combined total of $42.7 billion would be about $2.5 billion below the President’s FY2018 request, with most of this difference in the funding for the General Services Administration (GSA).

The House Committee on Rules announced a September 5, 2017, meeting to consider a rule on H.R. 3354, which was reported from the Appropriations Committee as the Interior appropriations bill. Under the Rules Committee announcement, H.R. 3354 would be considered on the House floor including nearly all of the text of H.R. 3280 as Division D of H.R. 3354.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations has held FSGG subcommittee hearings, but has yet to release an FSGG bill for FY2018.

Although financial services are a major focus of the FSGG appropriations bills, these bills do not include funding for many financial regulatory agencies, which are funded outside of the appropriations process. The FSGG bills do, however, often contain additional legislative provisions relating to such agencies as is the case with H.R. 3280, which contains several provisions in Title IX and Title X that also appear in H.R. 10, a broad financial regulatory bill passed by the House on June 8, 2017.