The Week in Public Finance: What's in the Congressional Spending Bill for States and Localities.

Several major programs — some that the White House aimed to eliminate — will get a significant funding boost. President Trump signed the bill hours after threatening to veto it.

In the federal spending bill that President Trump signed on Friday, several government programs are getting funding boosts, including two that the White House sought to eliminate a year ago.

Community Development Block Grants, which help fund an array of local government projects spanning from affordable housing assistance to small business loan programs, are set to see a $300 million increase in funding. That puts total federal funding at $3.3 billion for a program that Trump’s 2017 budget proposal had targeted for elimination. It’s also the first meaningful increase for the program since the early 1990s.

“Every year, it costs more to build roads and homes and to rehab facilities,” says the Urban Institute’s Brett Theodos. “So a program that’s the same dollar value every year is actually a shrinking program in terms of what it can produce on the ground.”

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GOVERNING.COM

BY LIZ FARMER | MARCH 23, 2018



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