Yesterday Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA) and Congressman Mike Thompson (D-CA) introduced the Primary Care Workforce Access Improvement Act of 2013 (HR 487). Their bill promotes the training of primary care physicians in rural areas and tests innovative and cost-neutral ways to distribute graduate medical education (GME) payments for the purpose of increasing the number and quality of primary care physicians in the United States. This could prove helpful to the UW WWAMI program, which focuses on producing primary care physicians for a five-state region (Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana, and Idaho). Learn more here.
Category: On the Hill
What’s Up in Congress
Today
The House is in at 2:00pm with votes expected at 6:30pm on the Children’s Hospital GME Support Reauthorization Act (HR 297), the Veteran Emergency Medical Technician Support Act (HR 235), and the National Pediatric Research Network Act (HR 225). The Senate is also back at 2:00pm and at 5:30pm will hold a key procedural vote to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act (S 47).
Last week
Congress approved legislation last week to delay a debate on raising the debt limit by allowing the Treasury Department to borrow whatever it needs from now through May 18th without regard to the statutory $16.39 trillion debt ceiling. The measure also would impose “no budget, no pay” rules, deferring payment of congressional salaries after April 15th until approval of a budget resolution in both the House and Senate chambers. The bill now awaits the President’s signature.
This Week
- The Congressional Budget Office is due to release its annual Budget and Economic Outlook on Tuesday.
- The House Budget Committee holds a hearing on the CBO’s Budget and Economic Outlook with agency chief Douglas W. Elmendorf on Wednesday.
- The House considers legislation (HR 444) this week that would require the President to submit an alternative budget if his fiscal 2014 proposal is not a balanced budget.
- The House Science, Space and Technology Committee will hold a hearing Wednesday at 9:30am titled “American Competitiveness: The Role of Research and Development.”
“No Budget, No Pay” Bill Proceeds in the Senate
Today the Senate is expected to proceed on HR 325, the House-passed “No Budget, No Pay Act of 2013” that would raise the debt ceiling through May while also making the payout of congressional salary contingent upon approval of a budget resolution in each chamber. The measure that passed the House earlier this month would suspend enforcement of the federal borrowing limit until May 18th and then raise the debt limit the following day to the debt accumulated to that point. The bill the House approved did not include cuts in exchange for the extension as House GOP members had previously demanded. The Senate is expected to approve the measure, although it may be amended and sent back to the House for approval.
Today in Congress
The House is in recess this week. The Senate is in at 10:00am and will recess from 12:30pm to 2:15pm for weekly party caucus lunches. The full Senate is expected to consider the nomination of Senator John Kerry to be Secretary of State, following the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s vote on the nomination at 10:00am this morning.
At 2:35pm ET, President Obama will deliver remarks on “the need to fix the broken immigration system so that it is fairer for and helps grow the middle class by ensuring everyone plays by the same rules” at Del Sol High School in Las Vegas, NV.
Sequestration Now Seems Likely
With just a month to go before sequestration is schedule to take effect, many on Capitol Hill now seem to accept that sequestration is likely to happen on March 1st. This may be in part because Congress is also facing the expiration of the current continuing resolution (CR) just a few weeks after (March 27th), which they believe will provide an opportunity to address federal spending and maybe mitigating some of the impacts of sequestration. And there are others who believe the sequester will not be as bad as first thought since the original cuts that were to take effect on January 2nd were modified by the fiscal-cliff deal. The cuts overall would be $24 billion less than in the original sequester, and the percentage by which domestic spending would be cut falls markedly. The original sequestration required under the August 2011 Budget Control Act (PL 112-25) would have cut spending by $109 billion beginning January 2nd. Now, as modified by the fiscal cliff law, the sequestration would cut spending by $85 billion starting March 1st. This translates to a 5.1% cut to non-defense discretionary spending for FY2013 as opposed to the 8.2% cut mandated by the original sequestration.
That 3-week window between the sequestration deadline and expiration of the CR gives Congress and the White House time to reach agreement to fund the government for the rest of FY2013 as well as deal with the automatic cuts, perhaps by replacing them in part or in full with other deficit reduction efforts.