Lots going on…. semi-important stuff is underlined. -Jeff Tax Reform Senate bill is likely heading for a vote later today, although it's 5pm as I write this and no vote time has been scheduled yet. They are still debating. BTW, there’s no publicly available text of the bill. And some grumbling that Senators haven’t had a chance to read the thing. Sen. McConnell told Sen. Wyden from the floor that he’ll have time to read it — but not sure how there would be enough time if they really want to vote tonight. Wasn’t clear until about noon whether Republicans really had 50 votes. Sen. Collins was still negotiating this morning, sounds like she got everything she wants and a short time ago she officially became a yes.. Another holdout, Sen. Flake, put out a statement in support just before noon. In it, he says he has secured a "commitment from the administration & Senate leadership to advance growth-oriented legislative solution to enact fair & permanent protections for DACA recipients.” Whatever that means. (More on DACA below.) https://twitter.com/JeffFlake/status/936644658167414784 Sen. Corker is reportedly the lone Republican who will vote against it, so the final vote is likely 51-49 in favor. Here is Corker's statment: https://twitter.com/SenBobCorker/status/936714880253616128 Here is a good WSJ article that provides a summary of how things looked as of this morning: https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-tax-bill-picks-up-support-after-delay-over-deficit-fears-1512140345 For up-to-the-minute coverage, WSJ’s MarketWatch is also live-blogging from the floor of the Senate today: http://blogs.marketwatch.com/capitolreport/2017/12/01/republican-tax-bill-heads-for-senate-vote-live-updates/ From my perspective, this is still a pretty shaky ship. Assuming the bill passes the Senate, Republicans must reconcile it with the House version through a conference committee. Just like Homer Simpson when he was elected Sanitation Commissioner, Republican leaders have made a lot of crazy promises that they are going to need to stick to as they work their way through that conference, plus all the other stuff (2018 appropriations, emergency disaster relief, CHIP, and DACA) that they need/want to get done before adjourning for the year. Some of the promises they’ve made to Sen. Collins, for example, depend on getting the health insurance legislation she wants in the CR that they need to pass next week to keep the government open (see below). If that goes haywire for some reason, will she vote for the conference bill? And because they’ve moved so quickly, Republicans have been bad at getting all their ducks in a row. One of the issues I follow for my other job, for example, is this provision in both the House and Senate bill to open up drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge — one of the reasons they got Sen Murkowski’s support early on for the whole package, as ANWR drilling is a big priority for her. But just last night a bunch of Republican House members wrote a letter to Speaker Ryan voicing objections to this, including six who voted for the House bill. Remember the House bill passed fairly narrowly, so potentially losing six Republicans, while not likely, makes a House vote on the conference bill potentially tighter. Point being, it’s all really hurried and sloppy and thus I think still not totally clear to me whether a fatal mistake might still be made that could cause the whole thing to collapse. PAYGO (you can safely skip this if not interested) Following up on another issue I wrote about earlier this week — the Pay-As-You-Go-Act (PAYGO) Act , which would trigger automatic sequestration of certain direct spending programs if the tax reform legislation increases the deficit. In the past, when Congress has passed a bill that would trigger a large PAYGO sequester, it has invariably included a provision turning off the automatic trigger. But this would not be possible in this case, because the tax reform bill is a reconciliation bill (which is why it only needs 51 votes) and a PAYGO waiver provision would be ruled out of order for technical reasons I won’t further bore you with. Which means they have to find another vehicle for it separate from the reconciliation bill—and at a later time. And that vehicle would be subject to a filibuster that would take 60 votes to stop. Sarah Abernathy of CEF notes that Sen. Collins has been vocal about the implications of the PAYGO sequester, and pointed me to this Politico article from last night: > [Sen. Collins] received a personal assurance from Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday that the cuts would be waived — one day after she threatened to oppose the bill over the severe reductions. She said House Speaker Paul Ryan had made the same promise. > > “I am confident that neither side of the aisle wants that to occur,” Collins said Thursday morning at an event hosted by the Christian Science Monitor, adding that GOP leaders will likely strike a year-end deal to waive the pay-as-you-go requirement. So this is another one of those promises to Collins that I still don't entirely understand how they can make and have absolute certainty they an deliver on it. They can punt the waiver legislation a bit down the road — Sarah reminded me that when Congress passed a CR last year that extended beyond the end of the session, it included a provision that delayed OMB's PAYGO report until after full-year appropriations were enacted (the sequestration isn’t triggered until that report comes out). But Collins is saying above that she was told that they will find a vehicle to do it before the end of he year. So I remain confused, but I also realize I this is already bit too far removed from this group's concerns… I just wanted to followup since I had mentioned the issue earlier. FY 2018 Appropriations As you’ll recall, the short-term continuing resolution (CR) that extends government funding at fiscal year FY 2017 levels until an agreement for FY 2018 spending is reached. expires December 8. One week away from that deadline, no agreement on FY 2018 has been reached, and there won’t be one until (1) tax reform is done , (2) a budget deal is agreed to that raises the defense and non-defense discretionary caps. Plus they have to somehow do this while getting a bunch of other things done, like the latest round of emergency disaster relief, CHIP, and Democrats’ insistence on addressing DACA before the end of the year. Sarah thinks there are two possible options for next week: > 1. Congress passes another short-term CR providing more time to work out a deal to raise spending caps and create an omnibus appropriations bill with year-long funding levels reflecting the higher spending. The question is whether this CR would be for two weeks, or if it lasts into January. Defense hawks want funding settled quickly, which argues for a two-week CR, and then another CR that has a budget deal by December 22. Conservatives don’t want a two-week deadline for fear that a rush to leave for the holidays will make Congress more likely to give into requests for higher funding. > > 2. There’s no agreement, and the government shuts down on December 9 until Congress chooses a path forward. Higher Education Act (HEA) Reauthorization The chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, Virginia Foxx (R-NC) has released a bill to reauthorize the Higher Education Act (HEA), H.R. 4508, called the Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform (PROSPER) Act. There are folks on this list who I am sure are reviewing this as we speak and perhaps can comment ton any provisions that would be relevant to this group. I know there is some Pell stuff in there. The Committee has provided a short summary, which may be viewed here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/the_prosper_act_summary_pdf.pdf The full text of the bill may be viewed here: https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/prosper_act_bill_text.pdf DACA Just a quick note, from a colleague at NEA who works on this — she feels confident that Democrats are steadfast on getting something done on DACA before the session is done, and that there are more than enough votes in both chambers to in fact get it done (Democrats and Republicans) but the problem is coming up with a vehicle. There are likely two CR’s coming up , one that extends the Dec. 8 deadline to Dec. 22. and then one that kicks the process into the new year — DACA legislation could be attached to one of those (likely the latter one). Note also the statement I cited up at the top of the update from Jeff Flake saying he is confident they’ll get it done. So I think it is reasonable to be cautiously optimistic. That’s all for now… Jeff Jeff Carter Cell: (202) 374-4387 | @jeffcrtr Past President & Policy Advisor National Coalition for Literacy www.national-coalition-literacy.org <http://www.national-coalition-literacy.org/> jcarter@literacypolicy.org <mailto:jcarter@literacypolicy.org> Vice-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>