Resolutions were introduced in both the House and the Senate (H.Res.458 and S.Res.313) recognizing the UW’s 150th year and its’ contributions to Washington state and the nation.
The Senate resolution – introduced by Senator Cantwell and cosponsored by Senator Murray, passed the chamber this morning by unanimous consent.
The House Resolution was introduced by Congressman McDermott and cosponsored by Representatives Smith, Larsen, Inslee, Dicks, Reichert, and Herrera Beutler.
By a vote of 69 to 30, the Senate yesterday approved an FY12 appropriations “minibus,” which includes three of the twelve FY12 appropriations bills: Agriculture, Transportation-Housing, and Commerce-Justice-Science.
It appears that in the process of approving several amendments to the first FY12 appropriations minibus, the Senate did not make any changes to funding levels approved by the Appropriations Committee for the National Science Foundation (NSF) or NASA. The Commerce-Justice-Science bill (S. 1572), approved by the Committee on September 15th, would cut the NSF budget by $162 million, or 2.4 percent, and the NASA budget by $509 million, or 2.8 percent.
Conference committee work on the package could begin as early as tomorrow. This is where a few members of the House and Senate work to negotiate a final bill – based on the minibus approved by the Senate and the individual bills approved by the House. House Appropriations Committee Chair Harold Rogers (R-KY) hopes to have a completed conference report by the week of November 14th so that both chambers can take action on that package before the continuing resolution (CR) expires on November 18th. Conferees on the minibus will likely add a new CR to the package to keep the government funded through mid-December.
The Senate is now working on a second minibus, which could move to the Senate floor as early as tomorrow. The package is expected to combine Energy-Water, Financial Services, and may include either State-Foreign Operations or Homeland Security.
The Office of Federal Relations Team is not making any holiday plans – for now – as it now looks like Congress won’t wrap up annual appropriations work nor consider recommendations for long-term deficit until just before Christmas.
House appropriators may try to expedite completion of overdue FY12 appropriations bills by adding one or two additional measures to what is now a three-bill Senate “minibus” package. The Senate is expected to pass the first of several minibus bills soon after it returns from a weeklong recess next week. Once the Senate takes this action, House Leaderships has indicated that they expect conference negotiations on the minibus to begin immediately, and that those talks would be completed quickly.
The Senate version of the minibus (HR 2112) contains three of the 12 regular appropriations bills for the fiscal year that began October 1st – Agriculture, Commerce-Justice-Science (S 1572) and Transportation-HUD (S 1596). The House might add continuing resolution (CR) language to that legislative vehicle that would keep the government operating past the November 18th expiration of the current stopgap bill (PL 112-36). A new CR might last until late December, when Congress is expected to be considering a broad deficit reduction package aimed at saving at least $1.2 trillion or more over the next decade.
The Senate has passed only one regular spending measure, the Military Construction-VA bill (HR 2055). The House has passed six of the 12, but did so under an overall discretionary spending target of $1.019 trillion that is lower than the limit now in effect. The House stopped considering individual appropriations bills after Congress set the current target of $1.043 trillion in the Budget Control Act enacted in August (PL 112-25). Wrapping up FY12 appropriations will involve negotiating compromises on dollar amounts for programs and on efforts to change federal policy through limitations on spending or policy riders. House appropriators, for example, have proposed using a draft Labor-HHS-Education spending bill to cut off money to enforce the 2010 health care overhaul (PL 111-148, PL 111-152). House Republicans also have sought to weaken environmental regulation by adding amendments to the Interior-Environment appropriations bill (HR 2584).
Not to be overshadowed by appropriations efforts, Republicans and Democrats on the Joint Deficit Reduction Committee are laying out budget proposals this week that could serve as a starting point for intense negotiations over a final plan to save at least $1.2 trillion over the next decade.
Republicans outlined their plan behind closed doors yesterday one day after details of a $3 trillion Democratic proposal was released. Details of the GOP plan are minimal, but it would rely largely on spending cuts and other non-tax revenue to exceed the savings mandate. In part, the GOP plan is aimed at drawing contrasts with the Democratic plan, which would seek an equal mix of tax increases and spending cuts — including $500 million in Medicare and Medicaid reductions — to meet its mark.
Neither plan stands a chance of being enacted in whole, but there are some signs in each plan that progress is being made among the committee’s 12 members on tough issues. Both proposals take a “go big” approach and target savings upward of $2 trillion, Democrats are at least willing to consider cuts to entitlements, and the GOP does not appear to have completely ruled out a corporate tax overhaul.
During a public hearing with the committee yesterday, CBO Director Elmendorf warned that caps on discretionary spending in the August debt deal (PL 112-25) could make it challenging for lawmakers to find more savings through cuts. He added that the impact of the caps will be felt most heavily by programs rising at a rate faster than inflation, such as Pell grants for higher education, defense, and veterans’ health care.
Stay tuned for more political maneuvering as congressional leaders try to figure out how best to resolve both FY12 appropriations and long-term debt reduction.
President Obama announced today at a speech at the University of Colorado Denver, a new initiative called ‘Know Before You Owe’ designed to make college loans more affordable and reduce the financial burden on recent graduates – many of whom are struggling to find employment.
The administration is essentially speeding up by 2 years, a federal law that was set to go into effect in 2014. Announced today and beginning in January of 2012, students with federal loans who enroll in the Income Based Repayment Plan will experience a cap on their federal student loan repayments at 10% (currently 15%) of discretionary income and all remaining debt on these federal loans will be forgiven after 20 years (currently 25 years).
The second part of the initiative encourages students with one or more types of federal loans to consolidate them for a 0.5% interest rate reduction.
The administration estimates that this could affect up to 1.6 million borrowers and save some students hundreds of dollars a month.
As described in this Science Insider article, NIH has begun to reach out to the community for feedback on what strategies should be considered during an era of reduced budgets. Everything seems to be on the table, from limiting numbers or grants per investigator to capping salaries charged to grants. NIH has put together a web based tool to help model these scenarios, allowing users to visualize cost savings were various strategies to be implemented. Thanks to Carrie W. at AAU who pointed out this article!