Budget & Appropriations Via CEF, we are informed that the four Republican and Democratic leaders of the House and Senate are meeting today with Trump Administration budget people to begin negotiations on increasing the statutory caps on defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2020. Without an increase, defense spending would be cut by $71 billion and NDD spending would be cut by $54 billion. The President, as you know, is opposed to raising the caps and instead, in his budget proposal, proposed going ahead with deep NDD cuts, and backfilling the defense cuts that would be required with overseas contingency operations (OCO) funding (sometimes referred to as "the Pentagon Slush Fund"), which is not subject to the caps. Acting on its own, the House set new levels for itself that increased the defense and NDD caps by equal amounts and is marking up FY 2020 appropriations bills to those levels (there are three being marked up this week: Defense, Energy and Water, Commerce/Justice/Science, and Interior and Environment), but those new levels are fairly meaningless unless the Senate and administration goes along. So the fact that these negotiations are finally starting is progress? Maybe? Obviously a compromise will be needed -- it's unlikely the Senate will agree with the House's top-line levels. Both Washington insiders and people who know nothing (like me) all seem to think that the caps will not be raised until the fall. But I thought you'd be encouraged to know that discussions are underway....  President's FY 2020 Budget Request Amended The document that everyone says no one pays attention to has been amended! Last week, the President sent a letter to Congress requesting that his FY 2020 budget request be amended. Among those amendments are a proposed rescission to the Pell Grant surplus of $3.87 billion. CEF has sent a letter to the House and Senate Appropriations Committee leaders opposing this. The President’s budget now requests a total cut of $3.9 billion to Pell Grant funding. Significantly, that cut that is not in the FY 2020 Labor-HHS-Education funding bill that's already been approved by the House Appropriations Committee. (Remember also that cuts to the "surplus" doesn't have any effect on FY 2020 Pell grants — it's essentially like a cut to their reserves, which potentially affects the stability of the program over time, so not a great idea.) Although CEF doesn't generally step in to advocate on individual programs, Pell's ongoing stability is of far-reaching importance to many education groups, including adult education, and it's one of the few places in the education budget where really big cuts/recisions can be made, so CEF typically sends a letter opposing Pell reductions/recisions/cuts. https://cef.org/wp-content/uploads/05.20.19-CEF-letter-opposing-new-Pell-Grant-rescission-request.pdf Legislation of Possible Interest S.1516 - A bill to amend the Higher Education Act of 1965 to strengthen the future workforce and reduce the cost of postsecondary education by reducing rates of postsecondary remediation. Sponsored by Senator Doug Jones (D-AL). There's no bill text so I have no idea what this is, but when I see "higher education" and "remediation" in a bill I figure it might be of interest. https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/1516/text Jeff Jeff Carter Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr Senior Policy Advisor National Coalition for Literacy http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/ mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org Immediate Past President, Committee for Education Funding Executive Director Physicians for Social Responsibility 1111 14th St, NW, Suite 700 Washington, DC 20005 http://www.psr.org/ | mailto:jcarter@psr.org