Month: March 2024

President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion government funding package last weekend as policymakers finally closed the books on fiscal year (FY) 2024 appropriations. The vote on the second “minibus” — which contains the spending bills for Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — is the last in either chamber until the week of April 8. When lawmakers return, government funding will continue to eat up bandwidth in the weeks and months ahead, as Congress is well behind on its appropriations work for FY 2025.

Early this morning, congressional appropriators unveiled legislative text for the final spending package for fiscal year (FY) 2024. The House will vote first on this six-bill minibus —which contains the appropriations bills for Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — during tomorrow’s session. The Senate will look to move quickly on the package ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, but this will require cooperation among all 100 senators to allow for speedy consideration. Absent this “time agreement,” a brief weekend shutdown could be possible while the bill works its way to the president’s desk.

Leadership is racing to finalize legislative text for the remaining fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bills as Congress brushes close to Friday’s deadline. All six measures — including Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — will be packaged together in a “minibus” that could be released as soon as today. Of note, the Homeland Security portion of this package will be included as a regular spending bill instead of a year-long continuing resolution (CR) after leadership reached an eleventh hour agreement on immigration and border policy disputes. As of the current timeline, a vote in the House may not occur until Friday, so a short-term funding patch may be needed to keep the government operational while this last funding package works through Congress.

• Today in Congress. The House will meet today to consider a rule that will govern debate on a series of GOP-sponsored energy bills that seek to, among other things: (1) repeal section 134 of the Clean Air Act (H.R. 1023); (2) promote and “restore” U.S. energy production (H.R. 1121); and (3) implement a series of Clean Water Act permitting reforms (H.R. 7023). Meanwhile, the Senate will continue churning through pending judicial nominations.

Congressional leadership and White House officials have reached an agreement on the next tranche of funding bills as lawmakers look to turn the page on fiscal year (FY) 2024. Leaders announced the agreement after navigating several border security and immigration policy disagreements within the Homeland Security spending bill, which may ultimately need a year-long continuing resolution (CR) given the fact that the two sides are still far apart on these issues. Bill text for the remaining measures is expected to be finalized in the next day or two. As such, leadership is discussing another short-term CR to keep the government funded through the weekend if votes slip past Friday’s midnight deadline.

• Today in Congress. While lawmakers wait for bill text and an announcement pertaining to votes on the forthcoming “minibus,” both chambers will be in session today. On the House side, 10 suspension bills are up for consideration, including a bipartisan bill out of the Budget Committee that seeks to capture a better budgetary analysis of preventive health care legislation. Later in the week, lawmakers will take up a series of GOP-sponsored energy bills under regular order that seek to, among other things: (1) repeal section 134 of the Clean Air Act (H.R. 1023); (2) promote and “restore” U.S. energy production (H.R. 1121; H.R. 6009); and (3) implement a series of Clean Water Act permitting reforms (H.R. 7023). In the upper chamber, senators will hold a final confirmation vote on Nicole Berner’s nomination to be a U.S. Circuit Judge for the Fourth Circuit.

Congress will return on Tuesday with less than one week until the next government funding deadline. As of this writing, five out of the remaining six spending bills are reportedly ready to go, but policy disagreements over the fiscal year (FY) 2024 measure for Homeland Security have yet to be ironed out. As such, leadership is discussing another continuing resolution (CR) for the Homeland Security bill while the remaining measures — Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), State-Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — get packaged together in another “minibus.” After missing their goal of releasing text for the next appropriations package this past weekend, leadership is hopeful they can file something before lawmakers return tomorrow. However, much remains in flux pending the outcome of ongoing negotiations.

Congress will return on Tuesday with less than one week until the next government funding deadline. According to the latest reports out of Capitol Hill, policy disagreements within two of the six remaining bills, Homeland Security and State-Foreign Operations, still have yet to be settled. Of note, Senate Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Susan Collins (R-ME) reportedly told some Republican senators that she does not see a path forward for a fiscal year (FY) 2024 Homeland Security bill. As such, leadership is mulling the possibility of another continuing resolution (CR) for these two measures while passing the remaining bills — Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), and Legislative Branch — in another “minibus” package. Text for the next appropriations package could be released as soon as this weekend, but much still remains in flux.

House lawmakers overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill that could ultimately ban the popular social media app TikTok. Specifically, the House passed The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act (H.R. 7521), which would force the Chinese parent company of TikTok to divest its ownership of the app within 165 days of enactment or face a possible ban in the U.S. The legislation is picking up significant momentum on both sides of the aisle, including from Sens. Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), the Chair and Ranking Member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. However, it remains to be seen if the bill will receive floor time in the upper chamber. Notably, intel from Capitol Hill suggests that leadership is mulling the idea of tacking this bill onto the next government funding package, or a bill to reauthorize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

• Today in Congress. Yesterday’s House vote was the last for the week as lawmakers gaveled out early to accommodate the GOP Issues Conference at The Greenbrier in West Virginia. The Senate will close out its week with a final up-or-down vote on the nomination of Dennis Hankins to be Ambassador to the Republic of Haiti.

The Biden administration unveiled its annual budget request for fiscal year (FY) 2025 yesterday as policymakers race to play catch-up on the lagging appropriations process. Government funding is expected to eat up significant bandwidth in Washington in the coming weeks and months ahead, especially given the fact that Congress still needs to pass the remaining six bills for FY 2024. Notably, Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director Shalanda Young and Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Xavier Becerra are set to testify on the president’s budget request this week in the Senate Budget and Finance Committees, respectively.

• Key Budget Docs. Text of the president’s budget request can be viewed here. The administration’s repository of press releases, “fact sheets,” and other supplementary materials on the budget request can be viewed here. The Treasury Department’s 2025 Revenue Proposals, otherwise known as the “Greenbook,” can be viewed here.

 

• Today on the Hill. Both chambers will gavel in for legislative business today. In the House, lawmakers will take up a bill that will require federal agencies to reduce their office space if they do not maintain a 60 percent utilization rate of their buildings. The House will also take up a GOP-sponsored resolution to denounce the Biden administration’s policies at the U.S.-Mexico border. Meanwhile, the Senate will resume consideration of pending presidential nominations, starting with a vote on Jasmine Yoon’s nomination to be a District Judge for the Western District of Virginia.

Congress is officially halfway through its to-do list for fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bills after President Biden signed a six-bill “minibus” package last week. Appropriators will now turn their attention to the remaining six funding measures — including Defense, Homeland Security, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Labor-HHS-Education, State and Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — prior to the March 22 deadline. However, appropriators are still negotiating through some of the more delicate policy disagreements within this next tranche of bills, notably within both Labor-HHS-Education and Homeland Security. As such, timing for the release of the remaining appropriations bills is unclear as of now.

• Situational awareness. Government funding is expected to eat up significant bandwidth among lawmakers in the coming weeks and months ahead, especially given the fact that Congress is well behind on work for FY 2025. Of note, President Biden’s FY 2025 budget request will be formally released later today, and several Biden administration officials are scheduled to testify on the budget starting this week.

— THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS. Both chambers will be back in session later this afternoon. In the House, lawmakers are slated to consider 11 suspension bills out of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. Notable measures up for consideration today would: (1) extend the Disaster Unemployment Assistance benefits for an additional 30 days (S. 1858); (2) allow the Economic Development Administration (EDA) to offer grants to public-private partnerships for broadband projects (H.R. 1752); and (3) extend funding for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) marine debris cleanup program (H.R. 886). Later in the week, House lawmakers will take up a bipartisan bill that would force ByteDance — the Chinese parent company of the social media app TikTok — to divest its ownership of the app within 165 days of enactment or face a ban in the U.S. Meanwhile, the Senate will pick up consideration of pending judicial nominations.

President Joe Biden is slated to deliver his State of the Union (SOTU) address where he will outline his re-election campaign platform ahead of his rematch with former President Donald Trump in the 2024 general election. The president is expected to tout progress on key policy items contained within laws passed during his administration — including the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL), and CHIPS and Science Act — as well as actions the administration has taken to advance various issues during President Biden’s first term. Reading in-between the lines of political messaging and posturing, the president’s speech will outline numerous policy positions on issues pertaining to health care, costs and “junk fees,” tax policy, and more. While many of these asks will be dead-on-arrival in a divided government, they are nevertheless worth monitoring from the standpoint of future executive branch actions, as well as if Democrats win control of Washington in the 2024 election.

As of this writing, here are some of the specific policy positions that President Biden will outline during his SOTU:

Health Care

• Expand the number of Medicare drugs that can be negotiated.
• Allow certain drugs to qualify for negotiation sooner upon their entry into the market.
• Extend Medicare’s inflation rebate policy to the commercial market
• Cap Medicare cost sharing at $2 for common generic drugs.
• Apply surprise billing rules to ground ambulance providers.
• Provide Medicaid-like coverage to individuals in states that have not expanded Medicaid.
• Improve access to home- and community-based services and support the caregiver workforce.
• Expand mental health coverage in Medicare and private insurance and extend incentive programs to address mental health provider shortages.
• Limit the availability of “junk insurance.”
• Impose requirements to ensure adequate staffing in nursing homes to improve care.

 

Tax

• Increase the Medicare tax rate in income above $400,000.
• Raise the corporate tax rate to 28 percent.
• Raise the stock buyback tax to four percent.
• Create a new corporate minimum tax of 21 percent.
• Create a 25 percent “billionaire tax.”
• Increase and expand the Child Tax Credit.
• Restrict tax deductions for corporations that pay over $1 million to executives.