Eight Days to End of Fiscal Year

Posted on September 23, 2013

There are just eight days left in the current federal fiscal year yet there is no certainty as to how lawmakers will resolve their partisan differences before October 1^st. The continuing resolution (CR) approved by the House last Friday will be the focus in the Senate where they will attempt to modify the bill before sending it back to the House for consideration. The House, meanwhile, will shift their immediate attention to a proposal to raise the debt ceiling until after the 2014 November elections.

Continuing Resolution: Senate Democrats will greatly modify the House passed CR to strip it of language defunding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and keep government funded at current levels. They will send that back to the House where Republican leadership may or may not find enough votes to approve the modified version of the bill. This could lead to a series of back and forth votes between the House and Senate in an effort to avoid a government shutdown if there is no deal by next Monday.

But even a clean, level-funded CR may face opposition from some House Democrats who continue to argue that austerity spending plans are harming the economy and threatening job growth since a level-funded CR would trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts (sequestration). However, those cuts would not begin until January so Congress could still pass separate legislation late in the year to undo them.

Debt Ceiling: Meanwhile, House Republican leaders are drafting a debt limit bill that will likely be unveiled next week and would remove the ceiling on federal borrowing authority beyond the 2014 elections. And, just like their CR, it would delay implementation of the ACA, as well as cut mandatory spending, provide instructions for a tax overhaul, and promote deregulation and energy development.

Although the White House would not necessarily object to a debt limit suspension mechanism, the House plan would be laden with provisions the White House and congressional Democrats oppose. Obama has said he wants a clean debt limit increase before it expires in mid-October and he has ruled out negotiating over an increase in borrowing authority.

Defunding Health Reform Tied to CR

Posted on September 20, 2013September 20, 2013

Update 9/20: The House voted 230-189 to pass the Continuing Resolution which is coupled with a provision to defund Obamacare. It now heads to the Senate where it will almost certainly fail as-is – and the chamber will restore funding, before heading back to the House. Both chambers must come to a consensus and approve a funding bill before October 1st to avoid a government shutdown.

The House Republicans are setting the stage for a possible gov’t shutdown on September 30th. They have just decided to couple a continuing resolution (CR) through December 15th with language defunding the Affordable Care Act, which will definitely get enough votes to pass the House. They could vote as early as tomorrow but more likely Friday or even Saturday. The strategy is to let the Senate Republicans take on the fight on their side through filibuster. The Senate, however, is unlikely to agree to the House bill so the shenanigans will continue into next week and right up to the end of the federal fiscal year. House leadership sees this as a way to force Senate Democrats and the President to negotiate on a delay in health care reform implementation, debt ceiling hike, tax reform, and possibly approving the Keystone pipeline.

Senate HELP Committee Announce Launch of HEA Hearings

Posted on September 17, 2013September 18, 2013

Chairman Harkin and Ranking Member Lamar Alexander today announced that they are launching a round of Higher Education Act (HEA) Reauthorization hearings over the next several months. The hearings will address a host of education issues and each hearing will have a specified focus. The Senators also issued a call for input from the higher education community, parents, and students.

Press Release

Call for Feedback

The first of these Hearings takes place this week:

The Triad: Promoting a System of Shared Responsibility. Issues for Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act
Thursday, September 19th
10 am, 430 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Witnesses:
Dr. Paul Lingenfelter, Former President, State Higher Education Executive Officers Association
Dr. Terry Hartle, Senior Vice President, American Council on Education
Dr. Susan Phillips, Provost and VP for Academic Affairs, University at Albany, SUNY
Dr. Marshall A. Hill, Executive Director, National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements

17 Days to End of Fiscal Year

Posted on September 13, 2013

Congress has gone home for the weekend with no new developments on reaching an agreement to fund the government after the fiscal year ends September 30th. It may be too early to talk about government shutdown, but just in case I thought I’d pull up the helpful 2011 FAQ from The Chronicle of Higher Education on what the impacts might be on higher education. We can certainly handle a shutdown for a few days if it comes to that – and today, with no action and no viable plan in sight, it certainly seems possible.

And We’re Back… To Fiscal Issues

Posted on September 11, 2013

What a difference a couple of days makes here in the nation’s capitol. On Monday, President Obama and Congress were still projecting a vote to take military action in Syria. But this morning it appears that the pause button has been pushed on that topic and lawmakers are once again turning to fiscal issues.

Late yesterday, House Republican leadership proposed a $986.3 billion short-term, stopgap spending bill (H J Res 59) that would fund federal government into FY14 at current funding levels. The proposed continuing resolution (CR) would avoid a government shut down as we quickly approach the end of the fiscal year on September 30^th and would fund government through December 15^th – giving lawmakers plenty of time to come to an agreement on how best to fund government for FY14.

The CR contains a handful of provisions to allow limited funding flexibility for some agencies. For example, the Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agencies would be able to maintain current staffing levels to ensure border security operations and immigration activities continue. The CR also allows some additional funding for the Department of Interior and the Forest Service for wildfire suppression efforts, the Veterans Benefits Administration for disability claims processing, and some flexibility for federal weather satellite programs.

But it is not yet clear as to when the House will vote on the proposed CR. The House Republican caucus is divided over leaders’ plan to pair the CR with a separate resolution withdrawing funding for implementation of the Affordable Care Act in fiscal 2014. But House conservatives are not happy with the plan that they say would create yet another symbolic vote against the health care law while allowing implementation to move forward. Conservatives want the CR to block all health overhaul funding and some have also called for adding a provision banning lawmakers and staff from receiving government contributions towards their health care premiums.

Using the fiscal 2013 spending level of about $988 billion would mark a compromise, as some House conservatives want to see spending in the CR set to the $967 billion level dictated for fiscal 2014 by the Budget Control Act (PL 112-25). Senate Democrats say they are ready to move forward with a plan that runs into December, even if it is based on a simple extension of spending at the annual level used in FY13.

Meanwhile, the Bipartisan Policy Center announced yesterday that the federal government could default as early as October 18th. This matches the administration’s projection. President Barack Obama has asked Congress to raise the debt limit without any conditions and ruled out any negotiations over it after a protracted debt limit fight two years ago.