Agriculture-Commerce-Justice-Science-Transportation-HUD Appropriations. This so-called “minibus” bill (H.R. 2112) combined into a single package three of the regular appropriations bills — Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science, and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — for fiscal 2012. Just the “discretionary” spending in the minibus for the three-bill package totaled $128.1 billion. In addition, there is the spending that the government deems “mandatory.” In the case of the Agriculture bill that was incorporated into the minibus, for instance, the appropriations include $116.8 billion in mandatory spending in addition to $19.8 billion in discretionary spending. The so-called mandatory spending in the Agriculture bill includes nearly $99 billion for food and nutrition programs.
The Senate passed the final version (conference report) of this legislation on November 17, 2011 by a vote of 70 to 30 (Roll Call 208). We have assigned pluses to the nays because Congress has no constitutional authority to fund many of the programs in the bill, including the farm programs, food programs, and housing (under HUD).
