FedTimes on appropriations... Capitol Hill watchers caution agency leaders to expect more hearings, more scrutiny, less predictability and longer wait times for their 2008 budgets. "The one thing that is clear is that departments and agencies are going to be held much more accountable and forced to disclose a lot of information that they haven't previously disclosed, and they are going to be punished if they don't disclose," said Scott Lilly, a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress. That punishment will come in the form of reduced funding — a flexing of the Democratic majority's newfound muscle, said Lilly, who previously served as staff director of the House Appropriations Committee Democratic minority office.