March 10, 2014
Congress returns to Capitol Hill today and will continue to debate what, and how much, help to offer Ukraine in its ongoing confrontation with Russia. The House will attempt to take up a non-binding resolution expressing support for Ukraine, but the fate of that measure is uncertain. In the Senate, members will likely pass a… Read More
March 3, 2014
President Obama will release his FY2015 budget tomorrow, a month later than usual due to the late work on the FY2014 omnibus bill approved in January. The document is widely viewed as “dead on arrival” because appropriators already have their discretionary top-line number for the year starting October 1st. No one really expects to see… Read More
February 28, 2014
On Tuesday, President Obama will release his FY2015 budget request to Congress. We learned yesterday – while we were on Capitol Hill advocated for more Graduate Medical Education funding to train primary care physicians – that the President’s budget proposal will include: • $5.23 billion over 10 years to train 13,000 primary care residents in… Read More
February 26, 2014
House and Senate appropriators will begin their FY2015 work this week with the goal of moving all 12 annual spending bills through the legislative process before the end of the fiscal year on September 30th. House and Senate appropriators are holding a trio of hearings this week ahead of next Tuesday’s White House budget release… Read More
February 24, 2014
President Obama will release his FY2015 budget request next Tuesday. He is expected to seek a small increase in spending as called for by the December budget deal but he will avoid any “grand bargain” proposals for steep deficit cuts. Obama’s request will stick to the $1.014 billion discretionary spending caps for FY2015 set by… Read More
February 12, 2014
With an impending snow storm as a powerful motivator, the Senate passed the House’s bill to suspend the debt ceiling until March 15, 2015 by a vote of 55-42. Earlier this week, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas vowed to filibuster the measure since the House Republicans “caved to President Obama” and were unable extract to… Read More
February 11, 2014
With a vote of 221-201 , the House voted to suspendthe debt limit for one year without requiring any offsets. Earlier this week, the House had floated the idea of adding military COLA pay to the measure, but ultimately that proposal and other additions were squashed. The measure narrowly passed and only passed with the help of… Read More
February 10, 2014
Both the House and Senate are in session this week. The Senate is expected to consider legislation to a repeal a cut in the cost-of-living adjustment for younger military retirees, while the House could consider debt ceiling legislation before adjourning Wednesday for a Democratic retreat. Both chamber will recess next week for the President’s Day… Read More
February 6, 2014
The White House has previously announced that they will submit their FY2015 budget proposal on March 4th, nearly a month later than required. Now we are hearing that they will release the budget request in two installments. The first on March 4th as previously announced, which will include top line numbers. The second and more… Read More
February 5, 2014
Yesterday the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released their Budget and Economic Outlook: 2014 to 2024. The deficit is expected to fall this year as the economy gains steam, but CBO also anticipates that increasing health care costs and higher payments on the national debt mean that those gains will not last. The deficit estimate sets… Read More
