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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
Three months into the 2018 fiscal year, Congress and the President have yet to finalize a budget deal. Delayed funding of government is not new to this Congress or its predecessors. Similar debates about how much to raise the Budget Control Act (BCA) caps (commonly referred to as sequester) occurred
The FY2018 appropriations process in Congress—which will provide funding for the federal government from October 1, 2017, until September 30, 2018—is once again approaching a deadline. After its failure to enact full year appropriations bills by October 1, Congress has passed a series of continuing resolutions (the first through December
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
There is a common adage in national security and foreign policy debates that “partisan politics stop at the water’s edge.” This famous statement was first coined by the influential chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R-MI) who, at the outset of the Cold War, overcame his
November 16, 2017, will be a day long remembered in the annals of Congressional history. Not because of the Franken picture or the fact that Sen. Menendez’s trial ended in a hung jury or even that Roy Moore had another revival press conference. No, this day will be remembered as
Since the New York Times and New Yorker dropped their bombshell reporting on Harvey Weinstein last month, sexual harassment and assault allegations have come to light against major figures in Hollywood, the news media, politics and other industries. Eyes have turned to Capitol Hill as well, with stories in the
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
The 2016 election was a near universal shock. President Trump beat (nearly) all prognosticators. House Republicans only lost 6 seats, retaining their 4th largest House majority since 1930. Senate Republicans also beat the odds and held on to a 52 seat majority. Suddenly, the 2016 Election that was supposed to
There’s a lot of talk about the broken processes in the House and Senate, particularly around the health care bill. Extraordinary secrecy has been employed to push the AHCA through the House and the BCRA through the Senate. In fact, there’s so much commentary about how “broken” the institution is
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