U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is pushing to increase budget funding for the Securities and Exchange Commission as House representatives debate a bill that could cut funding to the agency by $41 million. The Continuing Resolution is an appropriation legislation passed every couple of months and used by the U.S. Congress to fund government agencies. The current CR, passed in December 2010, expires on March 4. After passage, the new CR is effective through September. President Obama called for a 28% increase in SEC funding to $1.43 billion in his 2012 budget released earlier this week. The Continuing Resolution, however, would decrease funding to the SEC by $41 million. On Tuesday, when the debate on the CR began, Frank proposed an amendment to the legislation that would propel SEC funding by $131 million. The amendment included cut to other federal agencies and programs, including the two divisions of the Internal Revenue Service and two programs under the General Services Administration. Frank said in a recent House Financial Services Committee hearing that cutting funds to the SEC would disable the entity to govern the shadow banking system. While the SEC needs to increase staff to carry out its new and additional mandates under Dodd-Frank, several Republicans have vowed to cut funding to all federal agencies. Read more about it in the March issue of HousingWire magazine. Write to Christine Ricciardi. Follow her on Twitter @HWnewbieCR.