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Category: Administration

Shut Down

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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) held a procedural vote, known as a cloture vote, to end debate and move on to voting with the the four-week continuing resolution (CR) that the House passed earlier this week. After holding the vote open for over an hour, the measure failed to receive the 60 votes needed end debate.

After cloture was rejected, McConnell announced that he would ask senators to vote on a CR through Feb. 8 in the near term — presumably after the weekend, so terms can be negotiated.

The federal Office of Personnel and Management posted the following status at 1:38 am EST. “Due to a lapse in appropriations, Federal government operations vary by agency.  Employees should refer to their home agency for guidance on reporting for duty.”

The federal government is shut down.

All sides think that they are going to win the public opinion  in any shutdown fall out.

Stay tuned.

CR Stymied in Senate

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After the House passage of the four-week CR, the Senate then voted to begin deliberations. However,  Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to lack the 60 votes required to send the CR to President Trump for his signature. There are 51 Republican Senators and several Republican Senators have announced they would not vote for the House-passed measure.

House and Senate Democrats are largely united in opposing the measure, partly out of frustration with the failure of congressional leaders to reach a bipartisan deal that would raise spending caps for the current fiscal year and offer a legislative fix to protect immigrant “Dreamers” from deportation.

House Passes CR

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The House voted 230 – 197 to approve a continuing resolution (CR) that would fund the government through February 16 and renew the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) for six years. It does not include any immigration provisions to address DACA, Dreamers, or the border.

The measure goes on to the Senate.

House Releases $81 Billion Supplemental

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Totaling $81 billion, the supplemental spending bill (HR 4667) released Monday evening is $37 billion more than the $44 billion the Trump Administration requested in mid-November. As supplemental appropriations, the money is designated as emergency spending, which does not require offsets under congressional budget rules. The White House included a list of offsets, which can be found here.

If approved as is, this latest disaster aid bill would bring the emergency spending total to $132.75 billion this year — significantly surpassing the $60 billion spent in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy and the $120 billion appropriated after Hurricane Katrina.

The bill includes:

  • $27.6 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency
  • $26.1 billion for Community Development Block Grants for disaster recovery
  • $12.1 billion for the Army Corps of Engineers
  • $3.8 billion for agriculture recovery
  • $2.9 billion to assist schools in affected areas to rebuild and refurbish
  • $1.6 billion for the Small Business Administration disaster loan program
  • $1.5 billion to repair military facilities
  • $1.4 billion for damages to federal highways
  • $600 million in economic development grants

The bill includes language that would allow individuals who have lost property to wildfires to deduct damage costs on their taxes, would remove the penalty for withdrawing money from a retirement account and would incentivize donations to people and regions rebuilding after wildfires.

House leadership has not yet announced whether the supplemental aid package will be added to the stopgap spending bill (H J Res 124) heading to the House Rules Committee on today and the House floor after that.

Current stopgap funding  expires Dec. 22.

DHS Pick Confirmed

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The Senate confirmed yesterday by a vote of 62 – 37 Kirstjen Nielsen to lead the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). She replaces John Kelly, who resigned from that position to become the White House Chief of Staff.  She served most recently as the White House Deputy Chief of Staff under Kelly.  She also worked for Kelly before joining the White House staff as his chief of staff at DHS.

Read more about her here, here, and here.