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On August 24th, President Biden announced a plan to provide student loan debt relief. The policy will include debt cancellation of up to $20,000 for Pell Grant recipients and up to $10,000 for non- Pell Grant debt, for anyone with an income less than $125,000 ($250,000 for married couples). In
By Professor Julia Azari, Marquette University Presidential power is a bit at odds with democracy. Presidency scholars have noted this for years, suggesting that “greatness” is often uncomfortably close to the kind of norm-busting, authoritarian action that our constitution is supposed to avoid. Presidents also face a dilemma about
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
It’s time. Time to talk about the L word. As the cherry trees blossom in Washington and legislators’ minds turn towards reelection, the administration is taking stock of its legacy. In our hyper-polarized era, an administration’s first two years, especially if under unified governance, play an outsized role in the
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
In marking the one-year anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, many are taking stock of the state of the response as well as our democracy. The latter has not made for easy reading—the US has been categorized as a “backsliding democracy” for the first time or otherwise downgraded by think
Congress is back from its Thanksgiving recess only to face another round of demanding deadlines, the most pressing of which is averting a government shutdown once the current short-term continuing resolution (CR) expires on December 3. All this within the whirlwind of other activities: the just-passed infrastructure bill, the ongoing
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
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