Hi everyone — all of my notes today cribbed from Sheryl at CEF. I’ve used quotes when I am using her words verbatim. Shutdown. As most of you probably know by now, a deal was struck yesterday to end the brief government shutdown. Senate Democrats agreed to support yet another CR, to extend government funding through February 8th in return for a promise by Majority Leader McConnell’s to bring DACA legislation to the Senate floor before or by then. FY 2018 Appropriations. None of the drama from last week really had anything to do with the ultimate deal that needs to be reached, which will involve first raising the defense and non-defense discretionary (NDD) funding caps, and then coming up with an omnibus appropriations bill to finally set the funding levels for FY 2018 at the new levels allowed by the cap agreement. Sheryl notes: "The only long-term alternative would be to enact a continuing resolution for the whole year that funds programs at last year’s levels minus a small across-the-board cut to get funding down to the fiscal year 2018 spending caps for defense and NDD, which are below those for FY 2017. Defense hawks are adamant that they want a sizeable defense increase, and others – with the strong backing of CEF – also insist on the need to raise NDD funding.” Note that a year-long CR would mean roughly the same level of funding for adult ed as last year. think I saw Sen. Portman (R-IN) talking about a year-long CR last week, but I would be shocked if that actually happened. Jeff Jeff Carter Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr Senior Policy Advisor National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org <http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/> jcarter@literacypolicy.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 www.psr.org <http://www.psr.org/> | jcarter@psr.org <mailto:jcarter@psr.org>