President Releases FY2017 Budget

Posted on February 9, 2016February 10, 2016

Today, President Barack Obama proposed a $4.23 trillion FY 2017 budget, which will be his last in office. Overall, the White House’s proposal sticks with the discretionary spending limits set by last year’s budget deal.

Predictably the lame-duck budget was met with dismissal by Congress. Republican appropriators are complaining that the Administration is circumventing the budget caps by leaning heavily on new mandatory funding for programs that typically would receive discretionary dollars controlled by Congress. However, the President’s budget is symbolically the beginning of the federal appropriations conversations.

Included in the request was $19 billion for cybersecurity efforts a proposed a 35 percent increase in federal funds for the next budget year to boost the nation’s ability to safeguard its computer networks, both private and public, from attacks while preserving privacy.

For the third year in a row, the President proposed his College Opportunity and Graduation Bonus. In FY17, the program would provide $547 million for colleges that do a good job graduating low-income students on time. Department officials said the proposal is an important complement to student-focused incentives like the new $300 Pell bonus for recipients who take at least 15 credits per semester. The bonus would reward institutions that improve in this area, regardless of how well they were doing in the first place.

Other items of note include:

Defense S&T is cut by more than $535 million with nearly 40% of the cuts coming from 6.1 basic research.

The budget provides $7.96 billion for the National Science Foundation, of which $7.56 is discretionary and $400 million is new mandatory funding. For discretionary, this would be a 1.3% increase, but including mandatory an increase of 6.7%, over FY 2016. All directorates, including SBE and GEO received 6 percent increases.

The Administration is is requesting $19.025 billion for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), which is $300 million below FY 2016. This includes mandatory spending. The current fact sheet available doesn’t break out discretionary vs. mandatory. The Science directorate would get $5.6 billion, which is an increase of $12 million or 0.02%. Space Tech would be $827 million, an increase of 20%. Aeronautics would get $790 million, an increase of 23.4%. NASA Space Grant would receive $24 million.

NIST provided funding to expand the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation (NNMI) institutes by providing $42 million to launch two new institutes in 2017 and continue operations of the first Commerce led institute. The Budget also proposes an additional $1.9 billion in mandatory funding for an additional 27 institutes, completing the President’s vision for a network of 45 institutes over the next ten years.

NOAA

NOAA OAR would get $519.7 million, which would be an increase of 12.4%. NOAA Climate Research was allocated $159.1 million.
$12 million increase for investments in finding solutions to the challenge of ocean acidification. NOAA’s ocean acidification program
NOAA SeaGrant would get $68.9 million, which is $4 million below FY 2016.

The Department of Education received $69.4 billion in FY2017 for discretionary spending, an increase of roughly $1 billion from FY2016. An initial pass at the budget includes big wins for ESSA programs and supports including preschool and Head Start ($9.6 billion for Head Start, an increase of $434 million).

ED and the Administration announced previously that it was creating an enforcement unit within the Office of Federal Student Aid to respond to allegations, and the budget request includes $13.6 million specifically for FSA enforcement and oversight activities.

Pell: The Budget would see the maximum grant award for students boosted by $20, from $5,915 to $5,935, the administration is proposing an additional $2 billion for changes to encourage students to complete their degrees
FAFSA Changes: The Budget proposes to eliminate up to 30 burdensome and unnecessarily complex questions, shortening the FAFSA application substantially, and making it easier for students and families to access critical resources to pay for college.
Tax Changes: The Budget would streamline and expand education tax benefits by: 1) consolidating the Lifetime Learning Credit into an expanded AOTC; 2) exempting Pell Grants from taxation and the AOTC calculation; and 3) eliminating tax on student loan debt forgiveness, while repealing the complicated student loan interest deduction for new borrowers.

Snow Week

Posted on January 25, 2016

Congress has screeched to a halt this week as DC continues to be quagmired in snow by Snowzilla.

Bench on Connecticut Ave, NW, Washington, DC

A blizzard that blanketed the Northeast this weekend has disrupted the congressional calendar, with the House canceling all votes for the week and the Senate pushing its first vote to Wednesday evening. Congressional Democrats still plan on gather in Baltimore Wednesday evening until Friday for the annual Democratic issues retreat, which was truncating the Congressional calendar on the weather-shortened week. The Federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) closed all federal offices again on Monday as the District continues to dig out from record snow fall. Meanwhile the latest controversy in the District is the snow totals and how they are officially calculated for DC. The official totals, recorded at Reagan National Airport, came in at 17.8 inches of snow, and many are taking issue with this official recording. Dulles reported 29.3 inches of snow.

Other fun facts:

New York City missed is its all-time storm record by a tenth of an inch, with 26.8 inches at Central Park. Meanwhile, 30.1 inches was recorded at JFK airport.
Worst-hit was the eastern panhandle of West Virginia, according to the National Weather Service, with 42 inches recorded in Glengarry and 40.5 in Shepherdstown.
Airports are recovering, but at least 1,500 flighs were canceled Monday according to FlightAware.

When Congress returns, they come back to a full and already truncated calendar. The FY 2017 Budget will be front and center as Congress waits for the President’s FY 2017 budget request as well as working through a potential budget itself. While Congress does not need to pass a budget for FY 2017 due to the budget deal reached last year that covered FY 2016 and FY 2017, reports of the rising deficit have brought federal budgeting again to the forefront. For the first time since 2009, the deficit will grow relative to the size of the economy, amounting to 2.9 percent of gross domestic product. This year’s deficit is projected to be $544 billion, up from $439 billion last year.

Politics will be in full swing as the Iowa and New Hampshire presidential primaries are fast approaching while the Senators and Members of Congress also begin to focus on their own primaries.

State of the Union, Tonight

Posted on January 12, 2016January 12, 2016

President Obama will address a joint session of Congress this evening in the annual State of the Union Address. It will be Obama’s seventh and final State of the Union address. Typically, the final address is used as a roadmap for the party and the presidential election to come (or already in full swing), and only 4 President’s have been able to take advantage of this opportunity.

The address is rooted in the Constitution, but has taken a decidedly partisan approach in modern politics. Recently, Members of Congress have booed or called out at the President during the address and Supreme Court Justices have refused to attend the address.

While the speech is not yet final, the White House is expected to discuss STEM and the success underrepresented students have had in the STEM fields. And a college student and STEM advocate will be a guest of first lady Michelle Obama, in addition to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. While the State of the Union is designed to set the tone for the legislative and political session while laying out sweeping initiatives, not all of these ideas have enjoyed political success.

Federal Relations will have an update on the initiatives outlined and the Administration’s subsequent efforts following the address.

President’s FY 2017 Budget Delayed

Posted on January 7, 2016January 8, 2016

The Office of Management and Budget announced that the President’s FY 2017 Budget proposal will be delayed until February 9th. The President’s budget is statutorily required to be presented to Congress the first Monday of February, which this year is February 1st.

A delay on the budget transmission is not a new event for the Administration, and nearly all of the Obama Administration Budgets have been just or well past the first Monday deadline.

Federal Relations will continue to monitor the progress of the budget as well as the release and the resulting impacts.

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 4, 2016

The 114th Congress is back in action this week for the second legislative session. The House reconvenes tomorrow and the Senate will return on Monday, January 11th. The 2016 Congressional calendar boasts roughly 110 legislative voting days with plenty of 4-day weekends and an early summer recess – beginning in July and running through Labor Day.

Congress will begin the New Year with a busy agenda. First, as a reminder, all legislation that was in play last year carries over to this second session of Congress. That means that there are plenty of existing bills to consider, with more on the way.

Second, it appears that Congress will attempt to take action on FY 2017 appropriations bills early this year. With funding for the current fiscal year finally behind them, albeit three months late, Republican leaders have pledged to restore the regular budget process by clearing the 12 annual appropriations bills to fund the government by October 1st, the start of the new fiscal year. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) has indicated that he wants to begin considering spending bills on the House floor by mid-March, an unusually early schedule for bills that often don’t reach the floor until the summer or later. The task could be made easier this year because of a two-year bipartisan budget agreement passed in October that already established overall spending levels for defense and domestic programs for FY 2017. That means lawmakers can begin their work this year with the top-line spending limits already settled.

And finally, there are plenty of policy issues to watch for in 2016 – mostly carryover issues from last year. We expect to hear more about Syrian refugees and homeland security, criminal justice reform, taxes, and gun control. We also expect to see some movement on FDA reforms, similar to those already approved in the House approved 21^st Century Cures bill, as well as efforts to reauthorize the Higher Education Act.

Other than those pressing issues, Congress will be overshadowed by the Presidential campaign. The National Journal has a great article out today that poses 11 questions that will define Congress in 2016 – many of which revolve around Presidential politics.