Latest from Sarah Abernathy… great list (see: "Budget status summary”) of what’s coming next with budget/appropriations. No additional commentary from me on this one. Jason Botel to leave ED? – Education Week is reporting that the Education Department’s Acting Assistant Secretary for Elementary and Secondary Education, Jason Botel, may be leaving the Department or moving to a different position. There’s no word on who might replace him. Budget status summary – The last couple of weeks that Congress was in session flew by with a lot of action, but much still awaits Congress’s return in September. Here’s a quick rundown of the status of budget issues and the remaining to-do list: FY 2018 Appropriations bills – It is very unlikely that Congress will have approved final versions of all 12 government funding bills before the new fiscal year starts on October 1, setting up the need for a short-term funding bill – a continuing resolution – to prevent the government from shutting down. House status – In July, the House passed a “security omnibus” comprising four bills (defense, energy/water, legislative branch, and military construction/VA) plus funding for a border wall. The current plan is for Republican leadership to bring up an omnibus with all 12 funding bills the week of September 4, with no amendments allowed to the already-passed bills. All amendments to the remaining eight bills must be filed with the House Rules Committee by August 25 – in the middle of the Congressional recess, a highly unusual deadline. The Rules Committee will then decide which amendments can be debated on the House floor. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) said he thinks it’s likely that the House will instead pass the remaining 8 bills as a standalone omnibus, which is another option. Altogether, the 12 House bills break the FY 2018 discretionary cap on defense spending by $72 billion while providing $5 billion less than the level of the nondefense discretionary (NDD) cap. The Labor/HHS/Education bill is cut the most. Senate status – The Senate Appropriations Committee has approved 6 of its 12 funding bills for FY 2018, but the Senate has not brought any to the floor. Unlike the House, the Senate freezes total discretionary funding at the 2017 cap levels but changes the allocations for all of the individual bills. The Senate allocation for the Labor/HHS/Education bill is $3 billion above the FY 2017 level, but that won’t translate into more resources as it is needed to offset a decrease in the amount of savings available from mandatory programs. FY 2018 budget resolution – The House Budget Committee approved its FY 2018 budget resolution (H.Con.Res. 71) in July but did not bring it to the House floor for a vote, signaling that it likely did not have the support to pass. Democrats oppose the resolution in part because it provides reconciliation protection to fast-track Senate consideration of legislation slashing mandatory spending to pay for tax cuts. Some conservative Republicans think the spending cuts do not go far enough. Meanwhile, the Senate has not taken action on its FY 2018 budget resolution but Majority Leader McConnell and Budget Committee Enzi said they plan to mark up a resolution in Committee in September. The internal issues Republicans are debating appear to center around how the budget encompasses tax reform – if it deepens deficits, what economic assumptions it makes about growth, and whether it assumes current temporary tax cuts are made permanent, which lowers revenues by about $460 billion over ten years. FY 2017 budget resolution reconciliation – The barebones resolution Congress approved in January for FY 2017 included reconciliation protection intended for legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Last month the Senate took up the House-passed repeal under reconciliation but failed to approve an amendment substituting a different bill, and then stopped consideration. That reconciliation bill is still pending, so it’s possible the Senate could try again. Nobody is certain when or whether that reconciliation protection expires, but most agree that if Congress approves a conference agreement on the FY 2018 budget resolution that has new reconciliation instructions (this time, intended for a package of tax reform and mandatory spending cuts), the previous year’s instructions are superseded. (my emphasis - Jeff) Debt ceiling – Sometime this fall Congress will have to increase the limit on federal borrowing or else the U.S. will not be able to meet its obligations. Congress has sometimes rolled increases in the debt ceiling into other broader budget legislation – for instance, the Budget Control Act of 2011 that set discretionary spending caps. This impending deadline could be the impetus for renegotiating discretionary spending caps for FY 2018 and beyond. CEF continues to urge Congress to maintain the concept of parity in providing equal increases for defense and NDD spending. A higher NDD cap would allow more funding for national priorities and could benefit the education programs in the Labor/HHS/Education bill, which accounts for almost one third of all NDD spending. Jeff