Goobergunch Political Report

9 April 2011

Errata

Goobergunch @ 12:00 CT
Posted in: Appropriations

One brief correction from last night: The government did not, in fact, shut down for the hour it took for the appropriations extension to be signed into law. As the Washington Post reports:

[T]he White House relied on an obscure federal rule that permits operations to continue beyond the deadline if administration officials have “a high level of confidence” that the House and Senate are on the verge of passing a short-term or permanent spending bill that the president could sign shortly thereafter.

8 April 2011

Seventh Continuing Resolution

Goobergunch @ 22:16 CT
Posted in: Appropriations, GPR Live

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid tells us:

  • There will be a short-term continuing resolution through Thursday Friday. It will contain $2 billion in spending cuts.
  • The final omnibus appropriations bill will contain $78.5 billion dollars in cuts below the President’s FY2011 budget. That’s about $40 billion in cuts from FY2010.

To my knowledge, the legislative text of the continuing resolution at vote now is not yet publicly available.

[23:18 EDT]: Bill passes the Senate as amended.

[0:00 EDT]: The House still hasn’t convened, and the timer hits zero. The government is technically shut down at this time, but it shouldn’t have any practical impact.

[0:02 EDT]: House convenes.

[0:05 EDT]: The House is starting twenty minutes of debate on the short-term continuing resolution.

[0:13 EDT]: All time is yielded back. The House is now voting on the short-term resolution. I still have no idea what the $2 billion in cuts are.

[0:24 EDT]: A staffer in my Congressman’s office helpfully pointed me to the text of tonight’s legislation. It looks like most of tonight’s $2 billion come from transportation funds.

[0:40 EDT]: Bill passes the House, 348-70. 42 Democrats and 28 Republicans voted against it.

[0:43 EDT]: The bill is now enrolled and goes to the President for his signature. I’ll add a week back onto the government shutdown clock momentarily.

[1:20 EDT]: Here’s a summary table of the $2.171 billion cut tonight:

Budget Item FY 2010 funds FY 2011 funds Total Cut
Transportation Planning, Research, and Development $16,168,000 $9,800,000 $6,368,000
FAA Facilities and Equipment $2,936,203,000 $2,927,500,000 $8,703,000
FAA Research, Engineering, and Development $190,500,000 $187,000,000 $3,500,000
Capital Assistance for High Speed & Intercity Passenger Rail $2,500,000,000 $1,000,000,000 $1,500,000,000
Railroad Research and Development $37,613,000 $35,100,000 $2,513,000
Federal Transit Administration: Capital Investment Grants $2,000,000,000 $1,720,000,000 $280,000,000
Federal Transit Administration: Research and University Research Centers $65,670,000 $64,200,000 $1,470,000
Public Housing Operating Fund $4,775,000,000 $4,626,000,000 $149,000,000
Community Development Fund $4,450,000,000 $4,230,068,480 $219,931,520

Shutdown Watch

Goobergunch @ 17:16 CT
Posted in: Appropriations, GPR Live

With 5 3/4 hours left before the government shutdown:

  • Democrats claim that both sides have agreed on $38 billion as the total amount of spending cuts. (Yeah, that’s more than the Republican leadership’s figure at the beginning of the Congress.) Republicans dispute that.
  • The rider striking EPA rules regarding greenhouse gas emissions appears to have been removed from consideration.
  • The primary issue under contention is a rider defunding women’s health services, including Planned Parenthood funding.

At the moment, the House is in recess and the Senate is speechifying until 8 PM EDT. At that time, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid will make an announcement on the status of the negotiations. Until then, there’s really nothing to do but wait.

UPDATE [18:39 CDT by Goobergunch]: Senator Reid’s announcement has been pushed back to 9 PM EDT. Negotiations continue…

UPDATE [19:45 CDT by Goobergunch]: Senator Reid’s announcement has been pushed back to 10:30 PM EDT. National Journal is reporting that parties are reviewing the final outline of a deal and that a short-term measure may be passed tonight to permit the government to continue operating until the bill implementing the deal can be written. However, nothing is final yet and negotiations continue…

UPDATE [21:17 CDT by Goobergunch]: Senator Reid’s announcement has been pushed back to 11:15 PM EDT. House Republicans are currently meeting in a members-only conference. Rumor has it that a 3-day extension is in the works, but we shall see…

UPDATE [21:57 CDT by Goobergunch]: Speaker Boehner just delivered a brief statement saying that an agreement has been reached. Voting on a short-term continuing resolution will occur shortly, and a final vote will occur in the middle of next week. I’ll have a new post up shortly regarding any further details tonight, plus the bit where the continuing resolution actually gets passed.

7 April 2011

The Final Countdown

Goobergunch @ 13:34 CT
Posted in: Appropriations

By a 247-181 vote, the House just passed H.R. 1363 [PDF], which purports to be the House Republicans’ measure to avert a government shutdown. The bill would fund the Department of Defense for the remainder of the year, increasing its spending level by $7.6 billion. It would also fund the rest of the government for one week and cut domestic spending by $12 billion. Also:

It also has a controversial rider that bars the District of Columbia from using federal and local funds to pay for health services that include abortion for low-income women.

Given the existence of policy riders such as these and various restrictions upon the Environmental Protection Agency, this bill is not expected to pass the Senate. And even if it does:

If presented with this bill, the President will veto it.

That’s the word [pdf] from the White House earlier today. While negotiations continue, there’s only one day, nine hours, and twenty-five minutes to go before a shutdown. It looks like that timer is going to reach zero.

5 April 2011

Enrolled Bill

Goobergunch @ 17:00 CT
Posted in: Ways and Means
Tags:

As I mentioned a month ago, the House passed a bill, 314-112, to repeal “1099 reporting requirements”. A majority of House Democrats had objected to the bill paying for this repeal by increasing certain tax repayments, so I expected that pay-for to be modified before passing the Senate.

It seems I overestimated the Senate Democrats’ ability to stand up for policy alternatives. The bill passed the Senate today, 87-12. It now goes to President Obama for his signature. Even if he vetoes it, the margins in both Houses are enough to override.

4 April 2011

An Unsurprising Projection

Goobergunch @ 09:00 CT
Posted in: Election 2012
Tags: ,

From President Obama this morning:

Today, we are filing papers to launch our 2012 campaign.

Currently, there are expected to be 5,079 delegates to the Democratic National Convention. (This number will likely change slightly before the actual convention.) I am now projecting that, barring any events that cannot be reasonably foreseen, Barack Obama will receive the Democratic Party’s nomination for President of the United States, receiving at least 4,500 delegate votes.

I’m sure you are all greatly stunned by this fearless projection.

1 April 2011

Next Week in the House

Goobergunch @ 15:00 CT
Posted in: Providing for the General Welfare, Telegraphs, Telephones, and Radiotelegraphs

With the April Fools’ joke approved 221-201-1, it’s time to preview next week’s House session. Currently scheduled:

  • H.J. Res. 37 [PDF], which would disapprove the FCC’s “net neutrality” rule announced last December. I’ll probably have more details about this resolution next week.
  • H.R. 910 [PDF], which would generally prevent the EPA from regulating greenhouse gas emissions via the Clean Air Act.

Both of these bills were marked up by the Energy and Commerce Committee on 14-15 March. Although the committee reports are not yet available, the Committee has a page describing the markup.

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