Our new report on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s spending plan, along with our recent report on the House Appropriations Committee plan, help explain why the two chambers are on such different spending paths.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted last week to fund defense and non-defense discretionary programs next year at the levels set in the Budget Control Act (BCA) without the additional “sequestration” cuts scheduled for 2014.  That’s starkly different from the House Appropriations Committee plan, which sets an overall funding level that’s consistent with sequestration and then shifts money from non-defense programs to defense, resulting in deep cuts in non-defense discretionary programs.