Milton Friedman once famously said that there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program. Chairman Hensarling is a believer in Friedman, and while it is too early to say the Bank is dead, the Chairman must be smiling because the charter of the Export-Import Bank expires on Tuesday and Congress is not in session at the moment to extend. While proponents of the of bank are meeting at the White House on July 8th to discuss next steps both Democrats and Republicans have acknowledged that once the charter expired it would be more difficult to renew.
Month: June 2015
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
The debate on whether or not to grant President Obama ‘fast-track’ authority in negotiating trade agreements finally reached its conclusion last week with the President and Congressional Republican leadership emerging victorious. After failing to pass the full trade package earlier this month, Republican leaders devised a plan to navigate around Democratic resistance by decoupling trade promotion authority (TPA) from trade adjustment assistance (TAA). In a quick succession of votes beginning Tuesday, the Senate approved TPA and TAA for the second time, but in two separate bills. The House then passed TPA before finally approving TAA (H.R. 1295) on Thursday by a resounding vote of 286-138, two weeks after similar legislation had been defeated. President Obama is expected to sign the trade package this week, giving the Administration greater authority in negotiating trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Rosenstock: GOP Appropriators to Pressure DOL on Fiduciary Rule
In an article published today in Investment News, Thorn Run's Jason Rosenstock comments on the political landscape surrounding the Department of Labor’s rule to raise investment advice standards for retirement accounts by cutting funding. “It's too early to tell what the ultimate fate of the riders will be, but they will stay in play throughout the appropriations process as the DOL continues to work on the rule,” Rosenstock explains in the article. He continues saying, “the riders are clearly a mark that Congress is going to keep an eye on what the department is doing on this,” adding that “it's going to keep pressure on the department to be responsive to some concerns that Congress and the industry have identified.”
Continue reading “Rosenstock: GOP Appropriators to Pressure DOL on Fiduciary Rule”
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
Trade was once again at the forefront of discussion in Congress, as President Obama and Republican lawmakers sought to navigate “fast-track authority” around Democratic opposition in the House and Senate. The trade package seemed to be stalled after Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) was recently voted down in the House, but a new plan devised by Speaker John Boehner—to decouple TAA from the less contentious Trade-Promotion Authority (TPA)—revived the trade package and TPA passed the House with an unrelated bill on Thursday. TPA now heads to the Senate, where pro-trade Democrats must decide whether to approve the measure without the assurance that TAA will ever get through the House.
Financial Services Report
Looking Ahead
Near Term
- The House and Senate are in session before heading out of town for the July 4th recess but the legislative news of the week is what’s not on the agenda (hint it rhymes with Smex-Im).
- The House is set to take up another appropriations bill (Interior) as well as the Ratepayer Protection Act.
- The Senate will deal with getting TPA to the President’s desk and trying to find a way forward to move its own appropriations measures.
- The Supreme Court is set to announce major decisions on Obamacare and Marriage Equality.
Financial Services Report
While the defeat of the Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) on Friday was either “a procedural snafu” or the greatest victory for organized labor in recent memory, we think the real story of the TPA / TAA fight is part of a larger picture. That we are at an inflection point in how the power in Washington, DC is shifting away from the old guard of entrenched interests to (the hackneyed Silicon Valley term) disruptors who are using a combination of the Internet, relaxed campaign finance rules and hyper-partisan congressional districts to successfully influence policy.
Health Policy Report
The Week in Review
In a week dominated by discussion of trade, debate raged in Congress over whether or not to grant President Obama “fast track” authority on trade negotiations through a specific pair of measures known as Trade Adjustment Assistance (TAA) and Trade Promotion Authority (TPA). The debate boiled down to a highly anticipated vote on Friday, with the TAA measure—dedicated to helping workers displaced by trade deals—failing in the House by a vote of 126-302, with majorities of both parties voting against the measure in spite of a personal lobbying effort by President Obama on Friday morning. TPA was then passed by a vote of 219-211, but without TAA, it is likely to flounder in the Senate. Friday’s vote came as a massive blow for the White House, where they were hoping to add the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) to President Obama’s emerging legacy.
TRP Financial Services Report
June may be the month that the scales fell off the eyes of those who thought that previous success (i.e., SGR) would be indicative of smoother sailing in Congress in 2015. While the reauthorization of the Patriot Act created a bumpy road for McConnell, it may have just been a precursor for the fall. And, based on the attention the media paid to Senator Rand Paul for bucking Leader McConnell on the Patriot Act reauthorization, the other Republican Senators running for President might be licking their chops at the possibility of generating similar attention on their pet issues. That is when Senator Cruz and others will seek to maximize their negotiations on renewing the debt ceiling (assuming that once again raising the debt limit and funding the government are conjoined legislatively.) Complicating this is the fact that currently Democrats intend to block the Senate from considering all spending bills in an effort to increase domestic spending in the same way Republicans have attempted to get around the sequester caps on military spending. With the far left and the far right starting to take names on Ex-IM and TPA, everything is pointing to significant turbulence as Congress tries to complete its business for the year.
TRP Health Policy Report (6/8)
Last week, the Senate returned a day early from their Memorial Day recess, and worked throughout the week to reform the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) controversial surveillance powers – eventually passing House-passed legislation (H.R. 2048) two days after the legal authority for the programs expired. The 67-32 vote for the USA Freedom Act came more than 36 hours after three parts of the Patriot Act expired, forcing the NSA to wind down its bulk collection of U.S. phone data. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) suffered a political blow during the bruising fight over the legislation, after he and other hawkish Republican senators opposed the bill—and failed to pass a series of amendments—even after the House approved it in a broad, bipartisan vote. In the House, Members passed a $51.4 billion Commerce-Justice-Science (C-J-S) appropriation bill (H.R. 2578), which provides an increase of $1.3 billion from the current fiscal year, $661 million less than President Obama’s budget request. The House also passed legislation (H.R. 1335) to reauthorize fishery oversight activities of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
TRP Health Policy Report
The House and Senate were in recess last week for the Memorial Day holiday.
The Week Ahead
The Senate returned a day early from their Memorial Day recess for a rare Sunday session to continue working to resolve their differences over renewing phone data-gathering provisions of the Patriot Act. Lawmakers remain divided over whether to continue, rein in, or abolish the National Security Agency’s (NSA) ability to gather the bulk telephone call data as part of its effort to hunt terrorists. While the Senate was unable to prevent the programs from at least temporarily expiring, Republican leaders will try to make changes to House-passed legislation and quickly restore surveillance authorities that lapsed today. Later this week, Senators are expected to take up a $612 billion fiscal 2016 defense authorization bill (H.R. 1735), which was recently approved by the House.