The House passed a budget agreement today by a vote of 332-94. The two-year budget deal, crafted by Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), will bring back “regular order” to the annual appropriations process that has eluded Congress for the past couple of years. Lawmakers voted 332-94 on the deal that sets a $1.012 trillion discretionary spending level for FY2014 (current fiscal year) — halfway between the $967 billion sequester level and the far-higher number Democrats were seeking. It also sets a $1.014 trillion for FY2015. It finds savings through recalculating federal workforce pensions and requiring government employees to contribute more toward retirement. With this action, the House is now in recess until after the New Year. The Senate is expected to take up the budget measure next week where is should garner plenty of support for passage.
Category: On the Hill
House to Consider Budget Deal and Farm Bill Extension today
As Congress begins is last minute push to wrap up loose ends before the holidays, the House is expected to consider the Budget agreement and begin consideration on a 30 day Farm Bill extension today. After the House passes these measures, the legislation will then go to the Senate for consideration.
There is a possibility that a Continuing Resolution to fund the government for the remainder of FY14 will also be considered this week as well as the FY14 National Defense Authorization Act, but it is unclear if those pieces of legislation will actually get considered.
House to Consider Budget Deal Thursday
The House Leadership is expected to consider the Budget deal on Thursday. Although there have been small rumblings of discontent by some Republican House Members with the deal because it does allow funding over Sequester levels, the measure is expected to pass the House. The Senate will consider it soon after.
Budget Deal’s Impacts on Student Aid Servicers
The agreement reached on Wednesday by Senator Patty Murray and Congressman Paul Ryan reverses some sequestration cuts without raising taxes or making changes to entitlement programs. If approved, Congressional appropriators would have at their discretion $492 billion for non-military spending. That is about $23 billion more than would be available if Congress were to allow a second round of automatic sequester cuts to take effect in January. And yet, it is still about $14 billion below the original level of non-defense funding before the cuts first took place in March.
Within the confines of those top-level limits, lawmakers would have the discretion to restore and theoretically increase funding to campus-based financial aid programs and federal research agencies such as the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation, which would otherwise suffer more cuts if a second round of mandated “sequestration” reductions take place in January.
However, in order to pay for the $63 billion worth of increases to federal discretionary spending over the next two years, the negotiators identified various sources of revenue, such as hiking airline security fees and requiring federal workers to kick in more money for their pension plan.
Two of the cost saving provisions in the the agreement impact student aid servicers, but are not expected to have any immediate impacts on students. The first calls for Congress to cut payments to guarantee agencies in the now-defunct Federal Family Educational Loan Program, and changes how certain federal student loan servicers are paid. Not-for-profit and state loan agencies won a special provision in the 2010 Student Loan Bill that ended federal bank-based lending that guaranteed the entities loan-servicing contracts with the Education Department without having to go through a competitive bidding process. These payments will now be made with discretionary, not mandatory, funds. This change would save approximately $3 billion.
The second provision reduces the compensation that guaranty agencies receive for rehabilitating a loan from the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program, beginning July 1, 2014. It will save more than $2 billion over ten years
Senate Democrats Trigger ‘Nuclear Option’ – Eliminating Most Filibusters on Nominees
In a move that is sure to increase partisan tension, Senate Democrats made a historic move today and eliminated filibusters for most presidential nominations – severely limiting political leverage for the Republican party. The change applies to all executive and judicial branch nominations with the exception of the Supreme Court and means that confirmation is now possible with a simple majority of 51 senators versus a supermajority of 60. Democrats currently hold 53 Senate seats.
President Obama, Senator Reid, and other democrats cited deep frustration and unnecessary obstruction of government that drove them to make this historical change. Obama noted in his speech, that in the few decades prior to him taking office, a total of 20 nominees were filibustered. There have already been 30 nominees filibustered just since he took office in 2009. Republicans warned of the repercussions on democrats if the GOP regains control of the chamber in 2014.
Read more from Politico here