Senate Passes House Bill to Raise Debt Ceiling

Posted on February 12, 2014February 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 any spending cuts or other concessions to pass the bill. Such a filibuster could have caused a repeat of last Fall’s government shutdown.

However, much of the Senate’s inclination to stand tough went by the wayside as 5 plus inches of snow have been forecasted for the DC region. Both chambers of Congress have been eager to get out of town this afternoon given the storm hitting the eastern seaboard and the amount of snow that’s expected to fall in the Washington area.

The Senate voted 67-31 to end a debate on the legislation or end any filibuster threatened by Senator Cruz. The vote took nearly an hour, but cleared the way to a vote on final passage with a simple majority threshold. A dozen Republicans voted with Democrats to end the filibuster after the Senate Republican Leadership McConnell and Cornyn led the way. Republicans joining Democrats included, John Barrasso of Wyoming, Susan Collins of Maine, Bob Corker of Tennessee, Jeff Flake of Arizona, Orrin Hatch of Utah, Mike Johanns of Nebraska, Mark Kirk of Illinois, John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John Thune of South Dakota.

Both Washington Senators Murray and Cantwell voted to end the debate and voted for the suspension of the debt ceiling.

House Passes Clean Bill to Raise Debt Ceiling

Posted on February 11, 2014October 5, 2016

With a vote of 221-201 , the House voted to suspend the 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 Democrats. Only 28 Republicans voted for it, while 199 voted no.

The Senate is expected to vote to approve the measure later this week before they recess to avoid DC’s impending snow storm.

The Week Ahead: Debt Ceiling and Military COLAs

Posted on 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 week.

Treasury Secretary Lew told Congress on Friday that February 27th is the deadline for extending the nation’s debt limit, giving lawmakers less than three weeks to act before the government may default on payments. According to Lew, the 27th is the date when Treasury will exhaust the “extraordinary measures” it uses to stave off the need for new borrowing. While most believe that Congress will extend the nation’s debt limit without threat of government default, there is currently no agreement on how best to do that. House Republicans insist they want a policy concession from the White House to be attached to a debt limit extension, but they have not been able to agree among themselves on a provision. The suspension of the debt limit included in last December’s budget deal (PL 113-46) ended on Friday, leaving the Treasury Department to rely only on extraordinary measures to pay its bills.

White House Budget to be Released in Two Installments

Posted on February 6, 2014

The White House has previously announced that they will submit their FY2015 budget proposal on March 4^th, nearly a month later than required. Now we are hearing that they will release the budget request in two installments. The first on March 4^th as previously announced, which will include top line numbers. The second and more important installment won’t be released until March 11^th, and will include the budget appendix and justifications behind the top line numbers. The budget appendix is the thickest of the budget volumes, containing more detailed information on individual programs and appropriations accounts than any of the other budget documents.

The President’s budget request will be late this year due to the late work on the FY2014 appropriations, which culminated in an omnibus bill approved by Congress just last month. This delay will cause a delay in the finalizing the UW Federal Agenda as we generally wait to see what the President is requesting (or not requesting) before we make our final decisions.

This all means there is still time to weigh in on the UW’s agenda. Please get in touch with the Office of Federal Relations if there is something you would like to flag or have included in the FY2015 federal agenda.

Pell Grant Shortfall Delayed to FY2017

Posted on 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 the new baseline that CBO will use to assess the impact of legislative proposals this year. The agency now projects the cumulative deficit for 2014 to 2023 will total $7.3 trillion, which is about $1 trillion more than the $6.3 trillion estimate in May.

This new report provides a good analysis of Pell Grant funding. Last year we were all surprised to find a surplus in the Pell program after worrying that we would be facing a shortfall. The good news from the CBO report is that the surplus is still here and it’s trending larger. The CBO sees Pell Grant costs coming in about $1.7 billion lower than originally expected for fiscal year 2014. It also revised costs in future years lower than what it projected last year by about $1 billion a year. All of those figures assume that Congress keeps the current eligibility rules for the program, including the maximum grant, as they are today. Based on the CBO report, the Pell program may not see a shortfall until FY2017. EdCentral provides a great analysis of the Pell Grant surplus and what it means for future years.

This is good news for the Pell Grant program and the students who rely on it to fund their education. Closing the Pell shortfall has been a priority agenda item for UW for the past couple of years and we will continue to advocate for fund funding.