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News and updates

Trump to Sign Spending Bill, Then Declare National Emergency

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Late this afternoon, the Senate cleared by a vote of 83 to 16 the spending package that would fund the entire government for the rest of the fiscal year (the text of the conference report is available here). The Senate moved to vote on the bill even as the Members were unclear as to whether the President would actually sign it.

To end the drama, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) appeared on the Senate floor to announce that President Trump would sign the bill, which does not contain the $5.7 billion requested by the President for a concrete wall.  While declaring that the bill would be signed by the President, McConnell also added that President Trump also plans to declare a national emergency, in an attempt to find additional ways to construct the wall.  A number of Republicans in both chambers of Congress have expressed reservations about such a move, as they are concerned that a future Democratic president might declare a national emergency for other issues, such as gun violence or climate change.  If and when a national emergency is declared, various lawsuits are expected to be filed, challenging that declaration.

The House is scheduled to take up the measure later this evening.

Read more about the developments here, here, and here.

We will provide details from the conference report shortly.

UW Physician Testifies in Senate HELP Committee

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Today, Dr. Katherine Bennett testified in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions at the invitation of Senator Patty Murray. The hearing, titled “How Primary Care Affects Health Care Costs and Outcomes,” can be viewed on the HELP committee’s website here.

HELP Primary Care Costs Hearing

NSF and NASA Resumption of Operations

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The National Science Foundation issued the following notice concerning the reopening of the government:

A Resumption of Operations at NSF page has been developed that includes Important Notice No. 145, Resumption of Operations at the National Science Foundation, dated January 28, 2019, as well as supplemental guidance that addresses grant and cooperative agreement-related policy and systems issues.  This page will be of interest to your membership and we would appreciate your sharing this link as soon as possible. This page will continue to be updated as new information becomes available.

Policy-related questions regarding resumption of operations at NSF may be addressed to policy@nsf.gov.

 

NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine issued a message to the NASA workforce today.

CBO: Shutdown Cost $11B

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The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released a report today that the recent 35 day, 5 week government shutdown cost the U.S. economy $11 billion. Other take aways:

  • It permanently lost $3 billion in economic activity for the 4th quarter.
  • The shutdown delayed approximately $18 billion in federal discretionary spending for compensation and purchases of goods and services and suspended some federal services.
  • The level of real GDP in the first quarter of 2019 is expected to be reduced by 0.2 percent, or $8 billion less than it would have been if the government had been open.

Read the report here. 

Three Week Deal…Some Ancillary Fixes

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As part of the three week deal signed into law on Saturday, the measure (H.J.Res. 28) would reopen the nine Cabinet departments and several independent agencies closed during the shutdown through February 15. Beyond funding these agencies, there were other significant items included in this agreement.

Back Pay

Federal employees will receive back pay as part of the agreement. Most employees should be expect to receive their two missed paychecks by the end of the week. Government contractors may or may not receive missed pay depending on the nature of their contract. States or grantees that helped fill the gap during the shutdown can expect to be reimbursed.

Conference Committee

As part of the agreement, the House and Senate will convene a conference committee to work out a deal on FY 2019 Homeland Security spending, including the fate of the Administration’s demand for $5.7 billion for border wall construction, which is spending Congressional Democrats have long opposed.

Pay-Go

Under the Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010 (PL 111-139), the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB)  is supposed to issue a report within 14 days after the end of a Congressional session outlining whether enacted laws added to the deficit over five or 10 years. If so, then the OMB has to implement across-the-board cuts to any programs not exempt from the statute, to eliminate the excess.

Routinely, since the 2010 law was enacted, Congress has simply decreed that certain pricey provisions will not be added. For example, Congress removed the impact of the $1.5 trillion, 10-year tax cuts from the OMB’s calculations as part the 2017 stopgap appropriations bill both were signed into law the same day.

The stopgap spending bill includes provisions delaying roughly $800 million in spending cuts, mainly (about 90 percent) impacting Medicare. Because Congress did not act in time, the OMB should have had to implement the cuts, but the shutdown delayed implementation.

That Pay-Go “debit” will pop up again next year unless Congress eliminates it once again on any FY 2019 final package. A House-passed, $271.8 billion package (HR 648) of six appropriations measures would have wipe out the scorecard’s existing debit, so only future legislation increasing deficits would count for the OMB’s calculations.