Update 765 — FY24’s Bell Lap at LastDOJ vs Apple; Bank Merger Rules; NAR Congress is poised to pass the six remaining appropriations bills for FY24 almost halfway through the current fiscal year. Though disagreements between Speaker Johnson and the White House endangered the package in its final stages of negotiation, Democrats have emerged from …
Update 746 — FY24 Top-Line Agreement:Speaker’s Fraught Sell to Freedom Caucus Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on top-line domestic and defense budget target levels of $704 and $886 billion respectively for fiscal year 2024. The figures ratify targets set in the Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed last June by wide margins to avert a debt …
Update 745 — Hope for Tax Package Amid Unresolved FY24 Budget Issues The congressional budget-making process for fiscal year 2024 (FY24), now in its fourth month with no plan in place, seems to have two gears: slow and reverse. This week, …
Update 744 — January Preview, Part II:Supplemental, FY24 Crowd Hill Agenda Congress confronts a full agenda of must-pass-quickly items upon returning from recess in January. Members will have to complete work on the long-delayed national security supplemental package before seeking to resolve months-long impasses in the FY24 appropriations process. Watch out for a full-year CR, …
Update 742 — NDAA Passed, Sent to Biden;House Out; Senate Stays for Supplemental The 2023 legislative year is all but done, with Congress reaching agreement on an $886 billion defense authorization bill (NDAA) yesterday, which the President is expected to sign forthwith. The whole of Congress will not be in session until January 8, but …
NDAA Passed, Sent to Biden; House Out; Senate Stays for Supplemental Read More »
The GOP House effort to elect a Speaker concluded this afternoon when Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) prevailed in a 220-209 party-line vote. This means that Congress can return to fiscal policy — though already about half the time available to move past the current FY24 continuing resolution that is keeping the government open until November …
Update 729 — House Elects Speaker: Can Bipartisan Fiscal Policy Follow? Read More »
A tumultuous week in Washington and the industrial Midwest hints at a set of short-term challenges that threaten the nation’s rapid recovery from the post-Covid recession. Failure this week, particularly by House Republicans bent on impeachment, to make meaningful budget making progress and avoid a government shutdown and by Detroit automakers to avert the UAW …
Update 722 — From Strikes to Shutdown: Challenges to the Post-Covid Recovery Read More »
Update 679 — The GOP’s Fiscal Ransom Note:“Big Spending Cuts or Else… We Will Default” The joke among Democrats in Washington on House GOP plans for the debt limit: The GOP is willing to hold the American economy hostage, threatening, or indifferent to, default. It just hasn’t finished agreeing on a ransom note. The ransom …
Update 660 — Rules of Engagement:Starve the Beast, with an Orwell Nod On Monday, the House of Representatives adopted the GOP Rules for the 118th Congress. Newly-minted Speaker McCarthy had to make many concessions with the most extreme MAGA members in his conference in exchange for their votes, including creating new oversight committees and spending …
Update 659 — The Putative 118th Congress:What’s Ahead for Economic Policy Legislation The House GOP conference has had several thousand dollars of pizza delivered this week to sustain it through failed ballot after ballot to elect a Speaker. This spectacular display of chaotic dysfunction comes two years after the insurrection on the Capitol, a more …
