The FY18 Long Game: Maintains and Gains for RESULTS Global Poverty Issues

After five and a half months of six short-term continuing resolutions to keep the federal government funded and two brief government shut downs, the $1.3 trillion dollar fiscal year 2018 (FY18) Omnibus spending bill passed both the House and the Senate yesterday. Moments ago, the President said he would sign it into law.

This Omnibus was a bundling of all of the spending bills for the *current fiscal year – including the House and Senate compromise of their State and Foreign Operations (SFOPS) spending bills that RESULTS has worked on since January 2017. (*Not to be confused with our ongoing efforts to now influence FY19 or next year’s spending bills!)

Whew! What a long game. And really, we can’t thank you enough for all your advocacy efforts along the way!

What you need to know is that after an incredibly unpredictable year, your persistent advocacy efforts have ensured that none of the core global anti-poverty accounts RESULTS advocates for were cut in the FY18 budget. In fact, some programs saw increases.

Reminder – early last year started with RESULTS’ “First 100 Days Campaign” where advocates had a record number of face to face meetings on protecting the foreign aid budget for FY18. The continued drumbeat for that worked. The Omnibus includes a total of $55.9 billion for the International Affairs Budget in FY18 – a 3.8 percent increase over FY17’s enacted levels. This is a clear rejection of the Administration’s proposed deep cuts to development and diplomacy.

In the spring of 2017, RESULTS advocates also engaged in deep appropriations advocacy with the best efforts we had seen to date on the appropriations sign-on letter advocacy (that is until your recent FY19 work!). This along with the targeted push to get members of Congress to make personal requests to the Chairs and Ranking Members of SFOPS helped us to either maintain funding or even make some new gains for our issues in the final FY18 House and Senate SFOPS spending bills.

Highlights in Omnibus for Global Health and Education

• All the high-water marks (highest funding levels from either House side or Senate side) were kept in the final FY18 Omnibus bill.
• Massive cuts were reversed and funding levels were maintained for the Nutrition account and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria.

• After years of flat-funding Tuberculosis saw another increase of $20 million for FY18. This plus the increase of $5 million we saw in FY17 means the U.S. is contributing $30 million more for the fight against TB in just the past two years.
• Maternal and Child Health topline increased by $15 million which allows the U.S. to meet the Gavi pledge of $1 billion over four years and maintain other core maternal health and child survival funding.
• In a banner year for growing global education support in Congress, Basic Education funding cuts were reversed and the Global Partnership for Education got a 16.6 percent increase in funding.
• Total difference between proposed FY18 Trump Budget cuts and the FY18 Omnibus on our accounts = $731 million.

So now that the FY18 appropriations game is all done, we need your help to push back again against the administration’s budget once again. Keep up with what’s next for Senate sign-on letters on this blog – the Senate MCH letter is circulating now! And check the weekly update for what’s next in action taking.