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July 25, 2006 – This past week,
the Senate Appropriations Committee approved a range of spending
bills for FY 2007 covering a broad range of agencies and programs,
including mental illness research and services, housing, and
veterans programs. This follows previous action in the House
earlier this summer. While these bills – which cover
federal discretionary spending – are supposed to be
finished prior to the start of the new fiscal year on October
1, it is unlikely that Congress will act further on them before
the upcoming mid-term elections in November. Instead, the
House and the Senate are likely to have to come back as part
of a post-election "lameduck" session to complete
action on these spending bills.
For NAMI, these bills represent critical
federal priorities with respect to mental illness research,
services, housing, and veterans programs. The actions taken
by the Senate Appropriations Committee are especially important
since in many cases they counter efforts to cut funding for
specific programs, including medical research and housing.
In several key instances, the Senate Appropriations Committee
was able to shift overall spending authority to restore funding
for high priorities.
For details on each of these spending bills,
please click on the following links:
For details on mental illness research and
services, click
here.
For details on affordable housing programs,
click
here.
For details on veterans programs,
click
here.
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