Congressional Policy Issues
The Long Shadow of 2010
Laura Blessing | January 9, 2020
The dawning of a new decade brings the expected retrospectives. While algorithms compute our most listened-to songs and pundits connect the latest torrential news cycle to a loose historical pattern, finding the signal amidst the noise can be elusive. Periodization schemes can be difficult to pin down. But arguably, a decade is precisely the right
National Security Oversight: Still a Man’s World
Katina Slavkova | December 5, 2019
Women’s representation has made significant gains in politics. Women are major contenders for the Presidency and are increasingly winning office at the national, state, and local levels. Women comprising a quarter of Congress may be small in an absolute sense, but it is truly historic. Yet within the legislative branch, that influence is not felt
Back In Session
Laura Blessing | September 11, 2019
Congress is back in session, and all eyes are on the impending budget negotiations. The past month has not provided a respite from significant news. A number of mass shootings, border developments, and the clattering of the 2020 presidential aspirants reminds us that while Congress may have escaped the Potomac’s heat, the world does not
GAI in the News
GAI | May 8, 2019
Senior Fellow Mark Harkins discusses the current dust up between House Democrats and the President regarding subpoenas and oversight. Here is the entire article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Limitation Provisions in Appropriations bills: A Key Tool of Congressional Policymaking
Matt Glassman | May 6, 2019
Early last week, the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies released its draft FY2020 bill, and subsequently approved it in a markup held on Wednesday. In some respects, this was all very normal; the MilCon bill (as it is widely known) is often one of the first appropriations
The Aftermath
Laura Blessing | December 6, 2018
Another election cycle has washed over our nation’s capital. As outgoing members clear out their desks and incoming members eye their new offices, Congress gets ready for the next phase. It’s time to adjust to the aftermath of the election results, their ongoing appropriations work, other lame duck session policy attempts, a budget process
Congress in 2018: What’s left?
Josh Huder | March 5, 2018
Last month Congress struck a two-year deal that greases the budget wheels to the tune of an extra $320 billion. While political posturing and two brief government shutdowns hampered bipartisan negotiations, congressional leaders in the House and Senate ultimately settled on a budget that outlines discretionary spending, lifts the Budget Control Act’s(aka sequestration) caps
Victims of Their Own Success
Laura Blessing | December 21, 2017
The Republican Party has become a victim of its own success. Given their legislative, administrative, and impending electoral challenges, this may sound odd. But on their biggest policy priority, tax policy, they may have been too successful. And those previous successes combined with the tax bill passed this week may just imperil their reputation as
Why Tax Reform Is Hard
As we noted in our last newsletter, September was, perhaps, the cruelest month. A bevy of high stakes deadlines (and potential crises) loomed— many, but not all, were met. But the real blow to the party in power was the failure to meet a parliamentarian-decreed deadline to repeal and replace
Secrecy in Lawmaking and What it Spells for the rest of the 115th
Josh Huder | July 24, 2017
The House and Senate efforts to repeal and replace versions of the Affordable Care Act have relied on an amazingly convoluted, opaque, and covert process. It was, and is, a stunning display of haste and hubris, well outside the norms of the modern legislative process. Speaker Ryan dropped the American Health Care Act (AHCA) practically