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A bar graph haunts Washington. You know the one. Its jagged teeth notch losses for the President’s party in every post-WWII midterm House election, all except two. Those electoral projections have been a moving target this year, and in many respects we are living in unusual times. But the ultimate
Sometime in the last ten years the congressional budget process died. The precise moment is hard to pinpoint because it is not totally – just mostly — dead. But today, only a hollow version of the process still exists. Partisan majorities pass shell budgets to trigger reconciliation in the hopes
Defense officials are already busy making the obligatory annual rounds on Capitol Hill in support of the President’s preferred spending priorities. The current steady pace of congressional hearings might suggest that Congress is methodically working its way towards a timely passage of the defense budget. But this burst of activity
Where are we with government funding? It’s déjà vu all over again, as Congress passes another Continuing Resolution (CR). The FY2022 congressional appropriations process—which will provide funding for the federal government from October 1, 2021 until September 30, 2022—is once again delaying final action. After its failure to enact full
According to the headlines, last week Majority Leader Chuck Schumer forced the Senate to vote on a potential change to the Senate filibuster. In actuality, Schumer did something very different. What was nominally aimed at reforming the filibuster was actually an attempt to limit all senators’ rights under the rules
Last night, Republicans swept the statewide races in Virginia and made a serious push in New Jersey. Among the various pundit hot-takes and autopsies interpreting what Republicans’ impressive performance means going forward, many pointed to the cooling effect it would have on Democrats’ infrastructure and reconciliation bills. As Republicans shrink
Debt ceiling politics is front and center in Congress as the US is scheduled to default on its accrued debt October 18. (For a good explainer on the debt ceiling I recommend my colleague Laura Blessing’s piece.) So far, Senate Republicans have filibustered Democrats’ attempts to raise the debt ceiling.
On August 24th, the House adopted S.Con.Res.14, the congressional budget resolution for Fiscal Year 2022 previously adopted by the Senate on August 11th, setting up consideration of a $3.5T package of spending under the reconciliation process. The budget resolution was adopted 220-212 in the House and 50-49 in the Senate,
Halfway through its first session, the 117th Congress finds itself in familiar territory, one that past Congresses know all too well. The crush of ambitious and unfinished legislative business is threatening to overwhelm Capitol Hill’s notoriously tricky and fickle schedule. Call it the tyranny of the congressional calendar. Here we’ll
With all the other tumult going on in our politics, one might be forgiven for not focusing on a familiar landmine: the debt ceiling. After all, since its regularized inclusion in the appropriations process a decade ago, Congress has shifted from extending the debt limit to a specific amount of
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