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Category: Pure Politics

COVID/Approps Spending Package Cleared by Both Chambers

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After making the text available earlier in the day, both chambers of Congress cleared the massive $2.3-trillion COVID/FY2021 appropriations package last evening.  The measure now goes to the White House for the President’s signature, although it is uncertain when that would exactly happen.

Because the printing and processing of the official text of legislation for the President’s signature takes time– and the size of yesterday’s package was unusually large– Congress also passed and Trump signed yesterday another continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown while the legislative package was being readied.

Office of Federal Relations will continue to provide updates about the bill on its blog.

5,593-page Bill Now Ready

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A few hours ago, the text of the combined package containing the FY2021 omnibus spending bill and the next COVID relief legislation was released.  The text of the 5,593-page bill is available here.

Needless to say, it will take some time to go through the bill to pull out the provisions of most relevance to UW. However, provided below are some initial points of interest.

COVID RELIEF PACKAGE

Education

$82 Billion for Education

  • $4.05 billion to Governors for education purposes, with $2.75 billion set aside for private education funding
  • $54.3 billion for public K-12 education
  • $20.2 billion for public and private non-profit higher education, going directly to institutions
    • the distribution of funds will be based on a combination on a host of factors, such as the number of full-time Pell students, the number of total Pell students, the number of full-time students, the number of total students
    • With these funds, institutions would have to spend at least the same amount they spent on student emergency grants with CARES funding.
  • $681 million for for-profit higher education
  • $1.7 billion for MSIs and $113.5 million for institutions with the highest need
  • $113.5 million for those institutions with the greatest need caused by COVID-19

FAFSA Simplification

  • Reduces total questions on the FAFSA from 108 questions to a maximum of 36 questions
  • Reduces the Department of Education’s lengthy financial data verification process by instead using data from the Internal Revenue Service
  • Creates simpler Pell Grant eligibility guidelines for maximum and minimum awards, so many applicants will know if they will get a maximum or minimum grant to go to college
  • Seeks to more clearly define terminologies to help families understand the questions being asked.
  • Higher level of income protection allowance.
  • Allows incarcerated students to become eligible for Pell.
  • Eliminates drug conviction and Selective Service registration eligibility thresholds.

Health Provisions

  • $9 Billion for CDC and states for vaccine distribution
  • $22 Billion for state for testing, tracing, and mitigation
  • Medicare:
    • injects $3 billion into the physician fee schedule in 2021, resulting in payment increases across the board helping all Medicare providers during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic
    • continues the current Alternative Payment Model (APM) thresholds for two additional years, allowing more providers to qualify for the 5 percent APM payment who would otherwise have been disqualified because of statutory increases in threshold amounts
    • delays the 2 percent sequester cuts that were supposed to resume January 1, 2021, for three additional months
  • Enacts HR 3425, Medicare GME treatment of hospitals establishing new medical residency training programs after hosting medical resident rotators for short durations. This section allows hospitals to host a limited number of residents for short-term rotations without being negatively impacted by a set permanent full time equivalent (FTE) resident cap or a Per Resident Amount (PRA).
  • Enacts Promoting rural hospital GME funding opportunity (HR 8892). This section makes changes to Medicare graduate medical education (GME) Rural Training Tracks (RTT) program in order to provide greater flexibility for rural and urban hospitals to partner and address the physician workforce needs of rural areas.

Tax/HR Provisions

  • Energy efficient commercial buildings deduction. This provision allows an increased deduction for buildings that meet above-industry standards of energy efficiency in the year they are placed in service. The energy efficiency standards are updated and the deduction rate is indexed to inflation.
  • Transition from deduction for qualified tuition and related expenses to increased income limitation for lifetime learning credit. After 2020, this provision repeals the qualified tuition deduction and replaces it by increasing the phase-out limits on the Lifetime Learning credit to hold taxpayers harmless.
  • Employee Retention Tax Credit (ERTC) extended and expanded Beginning on January 1, 2021 and through June 30, 2021, among other things, the provision, allows colleges, universities and entities who’s primary purpose is to provide health care to participate.
  • Five-year extension of exclusion for certain employer payments of student loans.
  • Certain charitable contributions deductible by non-itemizers. This provision extends and modifies the non-itemizer charitable deduction for 2021 and increases the maximum amount that may be deducted to $600 for married couples filing a joint return (while non-married filers or married filers who file separately are limited to $300).
  • Modification of limitations on charitable contributions. This provision extends for one year the increased limit ($600) from the CARES Act on deductible charitable contributions for corporations and taxpayers who itemize.
  • Temporary special rules for health and dependent care flexible spending arrangements. This provision provides further flexibility for taxpayers to rollover unused amounts in their health and dependent care flexible spending arrangements from 2020 to 2021 and from 2021 to 2022. This provision also permits employers to allow employees to make a 2021 mid-year prospective change in contribution amounts.
  • Temporary changes to Flexible Savings Accounts. This provision provides further flexibility for taxpayers to rollover unused amounts in their health and dependent care flexible spending arrangements from 2020 to 2021 and from 2021 to 2022. This provision also permits employers to allow employees to make a 2021 mid-year prospective change in contribution amounts.
  • Codifies Education guidance and states that emergency grants that students received from the CARES Act or any other emergency grant funding from institutions, states, the federal government, or any other entity for emergency purposes would not count as gross income for tax purposes.
  • IRS and Education to work together to ensure that the sharing of taxpayer data for purposes for federal student aid does not create unintended problems with respect to confidentiality.

Other pandemic-related provisions

  • SNAP benefits extended to college students who are eligible for federal or state work study programs or have $0 EFC for federal student aid formula purposes, and are at least half-time
  • Second round of PPP loans
  • $300 per week unemployment payments for 11 weeks (through March 14, 2021)
  • $600 per person in direct payments (including for children), phased out at $75,000 per person/ $150,000 per couple
  • $25 billion for rental assistance and eviction moratorium through January
  • $1.3 billion for broadband connectivity
  • Extends the date by which state and local governments much make expenditures with CARES Act Coronavirus Relief Fund awards from December 30, 2020 to December 31, 2021.
  • Transportation aid: $15 billion for airlines, $14 billion for mass transit, $10 billion for state highways, $2 billion for airports and $1 billion for Amtrak.
  • Broadband: $3.2 billion for low income broadband expansion

 

FY2021 OMNIBUS APPROPRIATIONS PACKAGE PROVISIONS OF INTEREST

  • NIH $42.9 billion, an increase of $1.25 billion
    • $3.118 billion, an increase of $300 million, for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias research;
    • $560 million, an increase of $60 million, for the BRAIN Initiative;
    • $541 million, an increase of $8 million, for research related to opioids through the HEAL Initiative;
    • $220 million, an increase of $20 million, for Universal Flu Vaccine Research;
    • $3.09 billion, an increase of $20 million, for HIV/AIDS Research, including funding for the Centers for AIDS Research as part of the Ending the HIV Epidemic Initiative;
    • $65 million, an increase of $5 million, for the INCLUDE Down syndrome research initiative;
    • $12.5 million for research on firearm violence prevention;
    • $44 million, an increase of $5 million, for the Office of Research on Women’s Health; and
    • Funding for new initiatives, including $10 million for research on premature births, $10 million for research on tick-borne diseases, and $50 million for research on artificial intelligence to address chronic diseases
  • NSF $8.5 billion, an increase of $208.4 million above the FY20
  • CDC, $7.9 billion an increase of $125 million ($56 million, an increase of $5 million, for public health workforce and career development)
  • NIOSH $345 million, an increase of $2.5 million
  • AHRQ $338 million, level funded
  • NOAA Sea Grant $75 million, an increase of $2 million above FY20
  • DOE EERE $2.86 billion, an increase of $72 million above FY20
  • DOE Office of  Science $7.026 billion, an increase of $26 million above FY20
  • DOE Advanced Research Projects Agency $427 million, an increase of $2 million above FY20
  • NEA $167.50 million, an increase of $5.25 million
  • NEH $167.5 million, an increase of $5.25 million
  • Pell $6,495 for the maximum Pell Grant, an increase of $150
  • SEOG $880 million
  • Federal Work Study $1.2 billion
  • Corporation for Public Broadcasting $475 million, in 2023 advance funding, an increase of $10 million
  • IMLS $257 million, a $5 million increase
  • State Dept $100.7 million for combatting wildlife trafficking
  • USGS $25.7 million is included for continued development and expansion of the ShakeAlert West Coast earthquake early warning (EEW) system
  • USGS CRUs $25 million level funding

The House is debating the bill now and the Senate is expected to follow suit later this evening.

As we noted above, this is a very big piece of legislation, one that we will continue to review in the days to come.  We will continue to update this blog.  Please check back for additional updates.

 

They Bought Themselves Another Two Days

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By getting Congress to pass and the president to sign another short-term continuing resolution (CR) last night, negotiators bought themselves an extra two days to see if they could reach a deal on a COVID relief package.  Under last night’s CR, they now have the weekend to come up with something.

Read more about the situation in Politico here and the Washington Post here.

Another CR Needed

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So, even with the intensified negotiations over the past several days on the next COVID relief package, it appears very unlikely that the different sides will reach an agreement before the clock strikes midnight tonight. Even the various sides were to get to an acceptable compromise, it would take time to turn that into legislative text.  This means that another continuing resolution (CR) will be needed to prevent a shutdown.  The House is currently voting on a two-day CR, which would extend funding through Sunday.

While Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has committed to keeping the chamber in session until a final COVID package is passed, it remains to be seen how long that will actually take.

Read about the situation here and here.

Still No Deal…

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With the clock ticking, and although Congressional and White House negotiators are talking, there is still no deal on a next round of COVID relief.  As the result of a one-week continuing resolution, those involved in the discussions bought themselves an extra week, until Midnight Saturday, to come to an agreement.  It appears that a number of sticking points remain.

The Congressional leadership and the White House are seeking to attach the legislation to the $1.4-trillion FY2021 omnibus appropriations package that has been agreed to separately.  It is very possible that another short-term funding measure may be needed.

Read more about the situation here and here.