Author: Thorn Run Partners

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.

House lawmakers will meet today for consideration of a six-bill spending package ahead of Friday’s government funding deadline. This first “minibus” — which contains the spending measures for Agriculture-FDA, Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water Development, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD — is expected to pass under suspension of the rules today with support on both sides of the aisle. Following consideration of this first tranche of bills in both chambers, lawmakers will immediately turn to funding for the remaining bills — Defense, Financial Services and General Government (FSGG), Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, Legislative Branch, and State-Foreign Operations — which runs through March 22.

The race to replace Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) is beginning to take shape ahead of the highly-anticipated November 2024 leadership elections. Notably, Senate GOP Whip John Thune (R-SD) said yesterday that he “hopes” to be elevated to the position of GOP Leader in the fall, joining former Senate GOP Whip John Cornyn (R-TX) in the race to replace Leader McConnell. Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) is also reportedly gearing up for another bid to lead the Senate GOP Conference, and an announcement could come as soon as this week. Meanwhile, Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), the Senate GOP’s third-ranking official and Ranking Member of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, is set to pass on a bd for GOP leader and instead run for Republican Whip.

— CONGRESS GAVELS BACK IN TODAY. The House and Senate will be back in action today as lawmakers look to quickly pass a six-bill “minibus” spending package ahead of Friday’s first government funding deadline. Consideration of the funding package is currently slated to take place first in the House under suspension of the rules tomorrow, followed by the Senate at some point prior to the deadline. For today, the House will consider 14 bills under suspension of the rules, largely out of the Energy and Commerce (E&C) and Homeland Security Committees. This includes a bill that would reauthorize the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), as well as a measure that would issue new reporting requirements on cybersecurity threats to the 988 Suicide and Crisis lifeline. Meanwhile, the Senate will resume consideration of pending presidential nominations, starting with Ronald Keohane’s nomination to be an Assistant Secretary of Defense.

Yesterday’s meeting between President Biden and the “big four” congressional leaders appears to have yielded a tangible result in the form of another last-minute continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded. Under the emerging plan, six funding bills — Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-VA, Energy-Water, Transportation-HUD, Interior-Environment, and Financial Services and General Government (FSGG) — would be punted to next Friday’s deadline to allow more time for the drafting and consideration of a forthcoming “minibus” spending package. The remaining measures — Labor-HHS-Education, Defense, Homeland Security, Commerce-Justice-Science, State-Foreign Operations, and Legislative Branch — would run through March 22. A formal announcement on this agreement is expected “very soon,” according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

• On the floor… While lawmakers wait for an announcement pertaining to government funding votes, the House will gavel in to consider 10 bills under suspension of the rules. This includes an Energy and Commerce Committee measure that would direct the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to streamline nuclear licensing and reduce fees, while aiming to boost the commission’s workforce and increase U.S. nuclear energy exports. Additionally, lawmakers will take up legislation to spur joint research and development (R&D) activities among the Department of Energy (DOE), National Laboratories, and Small Business Administration (SBA).

Lawmakers will return this week as leadership scrambles to figure out a path forward for keeping the federal government funded. Here’s an overview of where things stand as we approach the upcoming March deadlines.

• What happened? Leadership was originally hoping to unveil text of the first fiscal year (FY) 2024 spending bills over the weekend — possibly alongside another continuing resolution (CR) to provide lawmakers with additional time on the remaining bills. However, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) confirmed that spending talks will slip into this week as House Republicans remain deadlocked over several policy disagreements that have bogged down the appropriations process.

• What’s next? Notably, the “big four” congressional leaders are slated to meet with President Biden on government funding and the foreign aid supplemental on Tuesday. Funding for Agriculture-FDA, Military Construction-VA, Energy-Water, and Transportation-HUD is set to expire Friday at midnight without a deal, with everything else funded through March 8. With the House set to return on Wednesday, any funding agreement to keep the government open will likely brush up close to Friday’s deadline.

Situational awareness. Notably, reports out of Capitol Hill suggested that leadership is considering another CR through March 22 to provide additional time to write and pass pending appropriations bills. However, that report came out before appropriators missed their target deadline of Sunday for a government funding announcement. Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is entering a potential “make or break” scenario with respect to his leadership position as lawmakers on the House Freedom Caucus continue to pressure for conservative policy riders and spending cuts for FY 2024. Potential votes on “minibus” spending packages and foreign aid without Freedom Caucus priorities could spur another effort to remove the speaker from his post — a key contributing factor to the current government funding uncertainty.