What We’re Reading This Week, July 20-24

Posted on July 23, 2015

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations office is reading this week.

Aliens – Stephen Hawking and Russian entrepreneur and VC, Yuri Milner, have announced a $100 million effort to search for alien life called Breakthrough Listen. Recent discoveries have shown the building blocks to life exist in abundance elsewhere in the universe. Milner’s also footing the whole bill. Read more at the Washington Post.

Trump Unifying – Presidential candidate appears to be a great party unifier and uniter of political parties…because neither one wants to be associated with him. Read more in the Washington Post.

Questionable GI Benefits – VA Secretary Robert McDonald has been asked by several Senators to investigate allegations that a number of questionable unaccredited educational institutions have received GI Bill benefits despite federal regulations to prevent it. The Center for Investigative Reporting recently published a piece that said veterans were using the benefit to attend unaccredited sex, Bible and massage schools. The VA did not respond to a weekend request for comment. The request from the senators comes as veterans who attended for-profit Corinthian Colleges that collapsed seek to have their GI Bill benefits reset, and as the Senate begins to focus more on reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. Read the report here.

Paying More for College – Student loans and debt may be dominating higher education policy debates, but six in 10 families didn’t borrow to pay for college in 2015, and parents’ out-of-pocket spending surpassed scholarships and grants as the top source of funds for the first time since 2010. However, an annual Sallie Mae report found that when families did borrow, the student took on nearly three-fourths of the debt. Read the Sallie Mae report here.

Are You In? Or Out? – As yet another presidential hopeful throws their name into contention this week, there are now a significant number of people running for the presidential nomination, last count 16. So many are running that Fox News has said they will only invite the top 10 candidates in the polls. How do you calculate the top 10 is giving some candidates concerns. Read more in the New York Times.

Harper Lee – While Harper Lee’s recent publication, Go Set a Watchman, has been controversial (and heartbreaking) for a number of reasons, the book has spurred great conversation about the duality and conflicts of Atticus Finch. How do you resolve the Atticus of To Kill a Mockingbird with the Atticus that joins the Citizens Council in Watchman? Politico has a long form story on why, yes, this conflict makes sense for a white man living in the South of the 1930s.

Making Lemonade – Lindsay Graham makes a video on how to destroy a cell phone.

Senate Finance Passes Tax Extenders

Posted on July 21, 2015

The Senate Finance Committee marked up and passed a tax extenders package today by a vote of 23-3. The bill , among many other proposed tax breaks, would extend the teacher tax credit, the above the line deduction for qualified tuition and expenses, and the research tax deduction all through the end of 2016. A number of education-related amendments have been filed in advance of the markup. One, from Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), would extend the teacher tax credit to qualifying homeschool families. Another would repeal the tax imposed on student loans forgiven due to repayment under the income-based repayment program. Neither of these amendments passed.

While this measure passed the Senate Finance Committee fairly easily, its path forward remains unclear.

House Ways and Means Committee Chair Paul Ryan has stated that his committee will take up tax extenders in the Fall. Chairman Ryan has been adamant about addressing the shortfalls prior to December to ensure certainty for business and taxpayers.

Read a summary of the Senate package here.

Senate Hearing on HEA

Posted on July 20, 2015

The Senate will be holding a hearing on the HEA this Wednesday entitled Reauthorizing the Higher Education Act: Exploring Barriers and Opportunities within Innovation. The hearing will be held at 10 am on Wednesday, July 22.

Watch the hearing here.

Debt Limit Battle on the Horizon

Posted on July 20, 2015

Both the House and Senate are out today, but return to the Capitol Tuesday with just two weeks left before the House is scheduled to take its summer recess. The Senate will follow suit in three weeks – unless they too decide to call it good and leave town with the House. In that meantime, leaders must reconcile the differing plans between the chambers for reauthorizing highway and transit funds. And both chambers have hearings slated around the review of the Iran nuclear deal.

But the issue we are watching most closely is the pending debt limit situation. The US Treasury estimates that extraordinary measures to stay financially viable will be exhausted in early December and there is a very good chance that November will be the month in which debt ceiling concerns start to escalate in the markets.

Republicans have begun drawing up their wish list in exchange for raising the debt limit this year. But if they decide to insist on conditions for raising the government’s nearly exhausted borrowing ceiling, they will face strong opposition from Democrats and the White House. And to further complicate the issue, the debt limit debate could get mixed up with whatever deal likely will still need to be reached on FY2016 spending.

The debt limit must be addressed or the government will default on its legal obligations, which the Treasury Department warns would result in a financial crisis.

The last time Republicans forced trade offs for their support to raise the debt ceiling was in 2011 when House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) drove the successful demand to cut spending dollar-for-dollar for any debt limit increase. The result was the Budget Control Act (PL 112025), which ended up making $2.1 trillion in spending cuts in exchange for a $2.1 trillion debt limit increase. But since then, Congress has suspended the debt limit three times, effectively raising the borrowing ceiling, and the GOP has been unable to force spending cuts in exchange for those increases.

While December seems like a long way off, it will be here before you know it. Raising the debt limit is difficult enough in the current political climate, but having it wrapped around the FY2016 appropriations process and reauthorization of highway and transit programs makes a difficult situation even more challenging.

What We’re Reading This Week, July 13-17

Posted on July 17, 2015July 17, 2015

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations staff are enjoying this week.

The BIG One – The Cascadia Subduction zone has experienced a tremendous earthquake approximately every 245 years. It’s been 315 since the last major movement…we’re long over due. Scientists at UW and OSU are working to determine when, how and what the impacts will be (preview: really, really bad). It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when. Read more at the New Yorker.

Toot, Toot – UW has a superlative freshman class this year. Read more in the Seattle Times.

Partner Up – The best partner for the next President: Research Universities. Read more at Time.

NO!!! – In the massive cuts that have happened to a number of agencies, one NIH agency, AHRQ, which despite NIH having an overall increase was cut, has its supporters militantly defending the threatened health research agency. Read more at Science Magazine.

Splits – Despite being one party, the Republican party has its splinter groups and caucuses, most notably the House’s Freedom Caucus and the Republican Study Committee. While they share a great number of opinions, they manifest differently. Roll Call has an example of that in the Ex-Im Bank issue.

Hemp It Up – While not having progressive views on marijuana, Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is very pro industrial hemp. Read more at Roll Call.

Bummer – The Google self-driving car was seriously rear ended (again). This time its Lexus was bumped. Read more at USA Today.

$1 billion – Is the cost of both the NASA efforts to go to Pluto and a new Minnesota Vikings Stadium. CBS Reality Check asks how should we be spending our money.

The latest poll from Fox News puts Donald Trump at the top of the Republican field, with 18 percent.