March 18, 2013
Congress has a busy schedule this week before they leave town for their two-week Easter recess. On the agenda are the continuing resolution (CR) and dueling House and Senate budget proposals. The Senate resumes consideration of the CR to fund the federal government for the rest of FY 2013. With some 90 amendments filed, they… Read More
March 12, 2013
One of the first causalities of the the federal Sequester is the Tuition Assistance (TA) program provided by the Army and Marine Corps. Following the Marines Corps lead, the Army announced on Friday, March 8th that soldiers will not be allowed to enroll in TA-funded courses after the day of the annoucement. The Marines announced on… Read More
March 11, 2013
The Senate will take action on a continuing resolution (CR) this week to fund federal government through the end of FY 2013. The current CR expires on March 27th. The Senate bill expands on the House version that was approved in that chamber last week, which combines new Defense and Military Construction-VA bills with a… Read More
March 9, 2013
President Obama will release his FY 2014 budget on April 8th, more than two months late. Under the law, the President must submit a budget by the first Monday in February. Congressional sources said last week that they had been told the budget was coming on March 25th, meaning the new April 8th release date… Read More
March 2, 2013
Late last night, President Obama issued the order mandating sequester cuts across the federal government. Here is the order and link to the Office of Management and Budget’s report to Congress: SEQUESTRATION ORDER FOR FISCAL YEAR 2013 PURSUANT TO SECTION 251A OF THE BALANCED BUDGET AND EMERGENCY DEFICIT CONTROL ACT, AS AMENDED By the authority vested in… Read More
March 1, 2013
Sequestration officially starts today around midnight, though Obama could issue the order sooner that will direct federal agencies to make cuts of about 9 percent for most nondefense discretionary programs and 13 percent for defense programs. This represents $85 million is spending cuts over the remaining seven months of FY 2013. If kept in full,… Read More
February 28, 2013
As predicted, the Senate rejected a Republican bill giving President Obama broad discretion to implement $85.3 billion in spending cuts — or sequester — over the remainder of FY 2013. The proposal failed 38 to 62. Senate Democrats also fell short of the 60 votes needed to move ahead with their own plan to forestall automatic… Read More
February 28, 2013
The Sequester is scheduled to take effect tomorrow, March 1st. There are some efforts to delay, modify, or turn off the sequester but none of those proposals have sufficient support to move through the legislative process at this point. A policy brief on this topic will be sent to the UW community today. That said,… Read More
February 27, 2013
The National Science Foundation has issued an Important Notice concerning the impact of sequestration on the NSF programs. In that notice, NSF indicates that they intend to make the necessary FY 2013 reductions with “as little disruption as possible to established commitments” and will use the following set of core principles to guide sequestration planning… Read More
February 24, 2013
Congress returns to work Monday after a week-long recess period. Foremost on their agenda this week will be the sequester, which is set to take effect on Friday unless Congress takes legislative action before then. Barring an extremely unlikely last-minute deal, about $85 billion is set to be cut from military, domestic, and some health-care… Read More
