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View all threadsFederal Budget and Appropriations/Medicaid Ruling/SNAP
Lots of stuff here — most important in terms of an action item is at the very end, regarding the comment deadline to submit a comment on a proposed new SNAP rule.
Jeff
(1) The Sequester Caps
The path to an increase in federal adult education spending in Fiscal Year 2020 begins not with consideration of how effective that spending might be, or how much the demand for services is, or how much better off our economy will be, etc. — it begins with a successful campaign to increase the current spending caps on federal spending set in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Without a cap raise, it doesn’t really matter how good the case is for an increase in adult ed spending — overall spending levels will be set so low that not only is an increase unlikely for any education program, but cuts are almost certain.
So here’s where we are on that issue. Last week, the Senate Budget Committee passed a budget resolution that keeps the caps as they are in current law for FY 2020 and FY 2021, and then frozen at that level for the next three years. That would require a $54 billion cut in FY 2020, the same as in the President’s budget, which cut the Department of Education funding by $8.8 billion. However, although the Committee approved the resolution (on a party-line vote), it’s not going anywhere beyond that. In fact, Chairman Enzi (R-WY) acknowledged that the spending caps will likely need to be increased for the coming year. (CEF sent a letter the Committee opposing the budget resolution – see:
In the House, Budget Committee Chairman Yarmuth (D-KY) said he hopes to announce today on how they plan to proceed. Their options are to mark up a budget resolution, mark up a bill that increases the spending caps, or do nothing - at least for now. One thing for sure, House Democrats are not going to leave the caps at the sequester level.
Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reiterated the Administration’s opposition to raising the caps, although its FY 2020 budget request provided a large defense increase by circumventing the defense cap via the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, which is NOT subject to the sequester caps, (and thus sometimes colorfully referred to as the “Pentagon slush fund”).
I don’t think that Congress is going to go for the administration’s approach. Instead there will eventually be some kind of deal to raise the defense and NDD caps, but there’s not yet an agreement on how much or when to do it. A deal would be best — it would make the process of passing appropriations bills a lot easier, but more likely it won’t happen until this fall (and possibly paired with a vote to raise the debt ceiling).
(2) Appropriations Hearings.
Secretary DeVos testified last week before the House and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor-HHS-Education and defended the President’s education budget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2BjeJ6RkQs&feature=youtu.be
The hearings made the news mainly because of the numerous objections voiced by committee members over the administration’s proposal to eliminate federal funding for the Special Olympics, (which was followed a short time thereafter by President announcing that he was rescinding that cut). I didn’t watch the hearing — perhaps some of you did. CEF reports that Secretary DeVos defended a few cuts that might be of relevance to this group:
21st Century Community Learning Centers – eliminating this $1.2 billion program because she said that that data did not show it was effective. House Appropriations Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY) disagreed.
TRIO and GEAR-UP – Secretary DeVos defended the elimination of GEAR-UP and reduction of TRIO funding and its change into a formula grant by saying it would save administrative dollars.
Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta will be testifying on the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2020 labor budget request before the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday, April 3, at 2pm. The hearing is in room 2358-C Rayburn House Office Building and will be live-streamed here:
https://appropriations.house.gov/legislation/hearings/department-of-labor-budget-request-for-fy-2020
The House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Fiscal Year 2020 Public Witness Hearing will be held on Tuesday, April 9. The deadline for requests to testify in person has passed but the deadline to submit written testimony for the record is Monday, April 8.
(3) Other Hearings of Possible Interest:
The House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment have held some hearings over the last few weeks that may be of interest:
Innovations in Expanding Registered Apprenticeship Programs
https://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/innovations-in-expanding-registered-apprenticeship-programs_
The Cost of College: Student Centered Reforms to Bring Higher Education Within Reach
(4) Work Requirement Rules
You know that I strongly encourage NCL members to keep track of the ongoing efforts to attach/change/increase work requirements/reporting in return for federal benefits or entitlements. Last week there was an important ruling in one of those efforts — the administration’s attempt to impose new work reporting requirements for Medicaid recipients. Our member CLASP has a good rundown on the ruling here:
https://www.clasp.org/blog/clasp-applauds-court-s-decision-protect-medicaid-arkansas-and-kentucky
Also by way of our friends at CLASP: This has already been discussed on the list, so I won’t go into detail, but as a reminder, tomorrow is the deadline to submit comments on the Trump administration’s proposed new rule to limit SNAP assistance for unemployed and underemployed people who can’t document a set number of work hours per week. More info here, including some guidance on how to comment:
Jeff Carter
Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr
Senior Policy Advisor
National Coalition for Literacy
http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/
mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org
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
Update (via CEF): The House House Budget Committee decided to not put together a budget resolution and will instead simply mark up a bill to raise the defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) caps for FY 2020 and FY 2021. As noted in my message yesterday, pretty much everyone agrees that legislation is needed to raise discretionary limits to levels that will allow FY 2020 appropriations bills to have sufficient funding to pass. Note, however, that the Administration remains opposed to raising the caps because it opposes increasing any non-defense discretionary funding.
Jeff
---- On Mon, 01 Apr 2019 12:04:12 -0400 Jeff Carter jcarter@literacypolicy.org wrote ----
Lots of stuff here — most important in terms of an action item is at the very end, regarding the comment deadline to submit a comment on a proposed new SNAP rule.
Jeff
(1) The Sequester Caps
The path to an increase in federal adult education spending in Fiscal Year 2020 begins not with consideration of how effective that spending might be, or how much the demand for services is, or how much better off our economy will be, etc. — it begins with a successful campaign to increase the current spending caps on federal spending set in place by the 2011 Budget Control Act. Without a cap raise, it doesn’t really matter how good the case is for an increase in adult ed spending — overall spending levels will be set so low that not only is an increase unlikely for any education program, but cuts are almost certain.
So here’s where we are on that issue. Last week, the Senate Budget Committee passed a budget resolution that keeps the caps as they are in current law for FY 2020 and FY 2021, and then frozen at that level for the next three years. That would require a $54 billion cut in FY 2020, the same as in the President’s budget, which cut the Department of Education funding by $8.8 billion. However, although the Committee approved the resolution (on a party-line vote), it’s not going anywhere beyond that. In fact, Chairman Enzi (R-WY) acknowledged that the spending caps will likely need to be increased for the coming year. (CEF sent a letter the Committee opposing the budget resolution – see:
In the House, Budget Committee Chairman Yarmuth (D-KY) said he hopes to announce today on how they plan to proceed. Their options are to mark up a budget resolution, mark up a bill that increases the spending caps, or do nothing - at least for now. One thing for sure, House Democrats are not going to leave the caps at the sequester level.
Meanwhile, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has reiterated the Administration’s opposition to raising the caps, although its FY 2020 budget request provided a large defense increase by circumventing the defense cap via the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) fund, which is NOT subject to the sequester caps, (and thus sometimes colorfully referred to as the “Pentagon slush fund”).
I don’t think that Congress is going to go for the administration’s approach. Instead there will eventually be some kind of deal to raise the defense and NDD caps, but there’s not yet an agreement on how much or when to do it. A deal would be best — it would make the process of passing appropriations bills a lot easier, but more likely it won’t happen until this fall (and possibly paired with a vote to raise the debt ceiling).
(2) Appropriations Hearings.
Secretary DeVos testified last week before the House and the Senate Appropriations Subcommittees on Labor-HHS-Education and defended the President’s education budget:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2BjeJ6RkQs&feature=youtu.be
The hearings made the news mainly because of the numerous objections voiced by committee members over the administration’s proposal to eliminate federal funding for the Special Olympics, (which was followed a short time thereafter by President announcing that he was rescinding that cut). I didn’t watch the hearing — perhaps some of you did. CEF reports that Secretary DeVos defended a few cuts that might be of relevance to this group:
21st Century Community Learning Centers – eliminating this $1.2 billion program because she said that that data did not show it was effective. House Appropriations Chair Nita Lowey (D-NY) disagreed.
TRIO and GEAR-UP – Secretary DeVos defended the elimination of GEAR-UP and reduction of TRIO funding and its change into a formula grant by saying it would save administrative dollars.
Department of Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta will be testifying on the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2020 labor budget request before the House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee on Wednesday, April 3, at 2pm. The hearing is in room 2358-C Rayburn House Office Building and will be live-streamed here:
https://appropriations.house.gov/legislation/hearings/department-of-labor-budget-request-for-fy-2020
The House Labor-HHS-Education Appropriations Subcommittee Fiscal Year 2020 Public Witness Hearing will be held on Tuesday, April 9. The deadline for requests to testify in person has passed but the deadline to submit written testimony for the record is Monday, April 8.
(3) Other Hearings of Possible Interest:
The House Education and Labor Subcommittee on Higher Education and Workforce Investment have held some hearings over the last few weeks that may be of interest:
Innovations in Expanding Registered Apprenticeship Programs
https://edlabor.house.gov/hearings/innovations-in-expanding-registered-apprenticeship-programs_
The Cost of College: Student Centered Reforms to Bring Higher Education Within Reach
(4) Work Requirement Rules
You know that I strongly encourage NCL members to keep track of the ongoing efforts to attach/change/increase work requirements/reporting in return for federal benefits or entitlements. Last week there was an important ruling in one of those efforts — the administration’s attempt to impose new work reporting requirements for Medicaid recipients. Our member CLASP has a good rundown on the ruling here:
https://www.clasp.org/blog/clasp-applauds-court-s-decision-protect-medicaid-arkansas-and-kentucky
Also by way of our friends at CLASP: This has already been discussed on the list, so I won’t go into detail, but as a reminder, tomorrow is the deadline to submit comments on the Trump administration’s proposed new rule to limit SNAP assistance for unemployed and underemployed people who can’t document a set number of work hours per week. More info here, including some guidance on how to comment:
Jeff Carter
Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr
Senior Policy Advisor
National Coalition for Literacy
http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/
mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org
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
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