The logjam continues.  House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) maintained in a Sunday talk show appearance that he would not bring legislation to the floor that would temporarily fund the government or raise the federal borrowing limit without attaching conditions.  He said, “There are not the votes in the house to pass a clean CR.”  But the Huffington Post and ABC News both have compiled lists of Republican House members who have gone on record in favor of a “clean” Continuing Resolution, or stopgap spending bill.  As of Sunday night, Huffington Post has 22-23 members on its list.  When added to a unified House Democratic caucus, that would be more than enough to pass a spending bill.

If the Speaker is opposed to bringing a spending bill with no strings attached to the floor, it is difficult to go around him.  One means available under House rules is the discharge petition. If members can collect 218 signatures on such a petition (a majority), the bill must be taken up.   Democrats have announced that they plan to file a discharge petition, and expect to get all 200 in their caucus to sign, plus enough Republicans to form a majority.  However, discharge petitions have brought bills to the floor only twice in the past, because members are reluctant to rebel against their leadership in such a public way.  As part of an effort to put pressure on House Republicans who do not want the shutdown to continue, the discharge petition can serve a useful purpose, even if it does not succeed directly.

Speaker Boehner has been attempting to shift the onus for the shutdown onto the President and the Senate Democrats, saying they are refusing to negotiate.  President Obama has responded by saying that he will not negotiate while there is “a gun held to the head of the American people.”  Both the President and Senate Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) have been willing to negotiate on the FY 2014 budget; in fact, the Senate has repeatedly called on the House to name conferees to work out the budget, which has been rejected by the House.

Big fight over short-term spending.  Ironically, the current logjam is not about a long-term deficit reduction plan.  It is not even about setting the funding for the full fiscal year.  At issue now is only a short-term spending bill to keep the government open for a month or two.  The House and Senate are already in agreement that the temporary spending should be at last year’s levels.  The House extends spending through December 15 and has tied spending to de-funding or delay of the Affordable Care Act; the Senate extends spending through November 15 with no strings attached.  The Senate is seeking the earlier deadline in order to leave maximum time to negotiate a full-year spending bill.  The Senate majority continues to press for ending sequestration cuts, with appropriations set at $1.058 trillion.  The House wants another year of sequestration cuts, which would take funding down to $967 billion, but they would protect the Pentagon by making the cuts to domestic programs even deeper.  If Congress does not agree to changes to the Budget Control Act (the deficit reduction law enacted in 2010), another round of sequestration cuts will be triggered this year.  The House will get the $967 billion in spending it wants, but cuts in Pentagon spending it doesn’t want will be enforced.  By extending the temporary spending bill only to mid-November, the Senate hopes to get an agreement on undoing sequestration.

The goal of any negotiations has been shifting among House and Senate Republicans.  Most Tea Party-aligned members are continuing to press proposals to de-fund or delay the health care law, although there are some who have abandoned that position.  Rep. Dennis Ross (R-FL) is associated with the Tea Party, but has concluded that the quest to de-fund the health care law is unwinnable at this time.  “We need to move on and take whatever we can find in the debt limit,” he told Bloomberg News.  Among the conditions that have surfaced as possible demands for raising the debt limit, in addition to delaying the health care law, are approval of the Keystone XL pipeline, de-funding of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, revenue-neutral tax reform, and cuts to Social Security, Medicare, SNAP/food stamps, and other entitlement programs.  Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) garnered the Washington Post’s Worst Week in Washington award for his expression of his caucus’ moveable goals:  “We’re not going to be disrespected…We have to get something out of this.  And I don’t know what that even is.”

Reducing the scope of the shutdown.  In the meantime, the House has passed unanimously a bill to provide retroactive pay to federal workers who have been furloughed, and the Senate promises to follow suit.  The President will sign it.  Workers will still have to wait for their pay, and are in effect on an enforced paid leave.  President Obama previously signed a law to ensure that troops are paid.  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hegel has ended furloughs for about 350,000 Defense workers.  The House has responded to the unpopularity of the shutdown by separately passing measures to provide temporary funding for national parks, National Institutes of Health, veterans’ services, the National Guard and Reserves, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and the WIC nutrition program for young children and pregnant women.  More mini-funding bills are headed to the House floor.  None of these are expected to be taken up by the Senate, which wants all of government to function.  (For a description of the ways in which the government is not functioning now, see CHN’s Federal Shutdown Impacts.)

Last week, there were reports that Speaker Boehner had made assurances he would not allow the federal government to default on its debts, even if he had to get to a majority with a sizable number of Democrats.  But such steps back from the brink were not in evidence in his Sunday talk show appearance.

As the likelihood grows of severe damage to the economy and public opinion opposing the shutdown and meltdown intensifies, there will be pressure to agree to clean extensions.  Whether those happen before or after serious damage is inflicted is still unknown.

The post CHN: Government Shutdown Followed by Economic Meltdown? A Way Out Remains Elusive appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The influence of the extremists in the House was clear in the decision of the House leadership to put forward a temporary spending bill with a poison pill permanently defunding the 2010 health care law.  The Continuing Resolution (CR) extends spending on military, domestic and international appropriations at this year’s levels through December 15.  The House estimates the annualized costs of continuing this year’s spending at $986 billion.  This level continues the sequestration cuts begun in 2013.  If spending continues all year at this rate, domestic and international programs subject to appropriation will be cut by 17.8 percent compared to FY 2010.  (For more detail on the proposed CR, see The Approaching Crunch, in the August 7, 2013 edition of The Human Needs Report.)

The Senate and President Obama have both made clear that they will not accept defunding of the health care law.  The Senate will now take up the House bill (H.J. Res. 59) this week, and will move to delete the health care provision.  Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) has threatened to filibuster to prevent the Senate from passing a version that does not defund the Affordable Care Act.  As a matter of Senate procedure, he will have to filibuster the bill that comes from the House, which is awkward because it contains the defunding provision he favors.  If there are 60 votes to move the bill forward, an amendment to strip the bill of the health law provisions will only require a simple majority.  Most observers believe the Senate will have the 60 votes to end a filibuster and will certainly have a majority to get rid of the ACA cuts.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) greatly prefers a CR that would last only till mid-November, at least if it is set at only current year funding.  The Senate Democrats and the President oppose permanent funding for FY 2014 at this year’s very low levels; their alternative is $1.058 trillion in appropriations, an amount that does not include continued sequestration cuts.  If a stopgap spending bill lasts until December 15, it is feared that Congress will not come to grips with making the changes needed and will simply keep extending current levels into the new calendar year.  As the months progress, it will be more and more difficult to undo the FY 2014 sequester reductions.  On the other hand, a November 15 deadline leaves more time to negotiate an end to sequestration.

Once the bill is returned to the House with changes including deletion of the ACA defunding, it will be perilously close to the end of the fiscal year.  With only a few days to spare, the House will have to decide (a) if it will insist on dismantling ACA or (b) agree to a cleaner extension.   Plan (a) will shut down much of the federal government.  The Wall Street Journal was not encouraging about this approach in a recent opinion piece:  “Kamikaze missions rarely turn out well, least of all for the pilots.”

A decision to agree to a cleaner extension will require Democratic votes in the House, on the assumption that many disgruntled extremists among the Republicans will vote no.  Getting to a majority may be difficult even without the ACA cuts, because members of the House Progressive Caucus do not want to vote for a spending bill that continues the sequester cuts.  Co-Chairs of the Progressive Caucus, Keith Ellison (D-MN) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) are “whipping” their 75 members to urge a no vote on a CR that continues the sequester cuts in this year’s spending.

Deadbeat Nation?  Not limiting their Affordable Care Act threats to a federal government shutdown, the House leadership has also announced plans to tie a set of conditions to a one-year extension of the debt limit.  To authorize the federal government to continue borrowing past November 2014, the House Republican plan is said to require a one-year delay in Affordable Care Act implementation.  It would also include cut proposals that have surfaced in previous deficit reduction negotiations, such as requiring higher contributions towards pension plans by federal workers, repeal of parts of the ACA, cuts in SNAP (see SNAP article in this issue), and charging higher-income Medicare recipients more for their coverage.  Reducing the cost of living adjustment for Social Security (using the “chained CPI”) has also been proposed in the past.  These proposals have all been vigorously opposed by organized labor and other advocates as well as by many Democrats.  The House proposal assumes that a year’s debt limit increase would be about $600 – $700 billion.  They would “pay” for that increase by cuts similar to those just described.

The Administration has been willing to consider some of these proposals in the past, but has said it will not agree to more cuts without an agreement to raise revenues.  The House leadership has told the Republican caucus that the debt limit bill will also include instructions to the tax-writing committees to come up with tax reform legislation.  If similar to language previously adopted in the House, the instructions will probably direct the House Ways and Means Committee to lower tax rates for individuals and corporations and be revenue neutral.  That would mean that revenue losses from reducing rates would be offset by closing loopholes or reducing other tax expenditures, but that there would not be a net revenue gain that could be used to replace sequester cuts or to meet other needs.  Such an approach would not sit well with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and many in his caucus.

If Congress does not increase federal borrowing authority by approximately mid-October, the government will be unable to pay all its bills.  The House bill to tie the debt ceiling to the ACA and other cuts could be introduced as early as September 25.  Here too, Democratic opposition will be firm.  In his Weekly Address on September 21, President Obama said “The United States of America is not a deadbeat nation.  We are a compassionate nation.  We are the world’s bedrock investment.  And doing anything to threaten that is the height of irresponsibility.  That’s why I will not negotiate over the full faith and credit of the United States.  I will not allow anyone to harm this country’s reputation, or threaten to inflict economic pain on millions of our own people, just to make an ideological point.”

Economists across the political spectrum have raised alarms about even threatening to tamper with the debt ceiling.  Martin Feldstein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors under President Reagan said “The debt ceiling is a very dangerous thing to play with.”  Alan Blinder, former vice chair of the Federal Reserve, said “In short, the consequences of hitting the debt ceiling are too awful to contemplate…A sane Congress wouldn’t even think about it.”  Republicans will have to think hard about how voters will react to this two-pronged threat to the economy.

The post CHN: House Extremists in the Pilot’s Seat: Hurtling Towards Government Shutdown and Debt Crunch appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

According to the 1996 welfare law, adults aged 18 to 50 who are not disabled or caring for minor children are limited to 3 months of SNAP benefits every three years unless they are working 20 hours per week or are in a job training program. With unemployment remaining high, 44 states sought and received waivers on those limits in 2013.  H.R. 3102 would eliminate that waiver authority, leaving states with only limited ability to provide exemptions to individuals.  It would also end benefits for an entire family if a parent is not working at least 20 hours per week, even if her/his child is only one year old, and even if unemployment remains high. And the bill gives states a reward for cutting families off SNAP – the state gets 50 percent of the reduced costs to use for any purpose.

About half of the cuts in H.R. 3102 are the result of two provisions related to how benefits and eligibility are determined.  The first eliminates the state option to provide benefits to low-income families and elderly whose gross incomes or assets are slightly above the federal SNAP limits.  The second significantly restricts the coordination of the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) with SNAP, the so-called ‘Heat and Eat’ provision. Currently SNAP-eligible households with a nominal LIHEAP payment are allowed to deduct a standard allowance for shelter and utilities, thereby increasing their SNAP benefit. This is particularly beneficial for seniors and those with disabilities who pay a high proportion of their income for shelter costs. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia utilize ‘Heat and Eat’. This provision will increase the states’ administrative costs associated with determining SNAP benefit levels.  For more details on H.R. 3102, see the September 17 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report.

The deep cuts to SNAP in H.R 3102 come at a time when lower income families have yet to benefit from the economic recovery.  In 2012 there were nearly 6.7 million more poor people than in 2008, the first full year of the Great Recession.  SNAP has proven to be effective at reducing poverty.  Nearly 4 million people rose out of poverty because of SNAP in 2012, of whom 1.67 million were children.  Investments in reducing hunger have also proven to have a positive impact on the economy.  Every $1 spent on nutrition assistance results in $1.70 in economic activity.

H.R. 3102 is a 3-year authorization bill, effectively severing it from the farm bill’s commodity subsides and conservation programs which are authorized for 5 years.  For decades, there has been bipartisan support in the farm bill for making sure that poor people can get the modest but vital SNAP benefits averaging $4 per day.  Separating farm subsidies from nutrition assistance would make it more difficult to garner support for SNAP, as evidenced by the partisan vote on H.R. 3102.

The vote on H.R. 3102 followed passage of a Senate farm bill, a failed attempt by the House to pass a farm bill, and passage in the House of an agriculture-only bill without nutrition provisions.  A summary of these actions follows.

Prior Actions in the House and Senate

The Senate passed its farm bill, the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 3013 (S. 954) on June 10 by a vote of 66-27.  The bill includes a $4.1 billion cut in SNAP achieved by a smaller restriction of the “Heat and Eat” provision (see above).  During floor consideration, the Senate rejected an amendment (40-58) that would have cut SNAP by $31 billion over 10 years.

On June 20 the House failed to pass its farm bill, the Federal Agriculture Reform and Risk Management Act of 2013 (H.R. 1947).  The vote was 195-234 with 24 Democrats voting in favor despite a $20.5 billion cut to SNAP.  Republican opponents believed the SNAP cut was not deep enough. Prior to the bill’s defeat, an amendment sponsored by Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL) passed that would allow pilot programs in states to mandate work requirements for SNAP recipients.  States would be allowed to keep half of the money saved by removing non-compliant families from the rolls.  This is an unprecedented incentive for states who could use the money for unspecified purposes. (A provision similar to the Southerland amendment was included in H.R. 3102.  See above.)  Leading congressional nutrition proponent Rep. Jim McGovern’s (D-MA) amendment to restore the $20.5 billion SNAP cut failed 188-234.

After H.R. 1947 failed in the House, leadership decided to allow a vote on a split farm bill that included only the agriculture provisions of the bill, excluding nutrition programs.  The split version of the bill passed on July 11 by a vote of 216-208 with no Democrats voting in favor.  House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) then convened a group of House members who supported extreme changes to SNAP and developed H.R. 3102.

What’s Next

In less than two months, all SNAP recipients will see a reduction in their benefits when the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s temporary boost expires, leaving a family of three with $20-$25 less in benefits per month.

This fall a House-Senate conference committee will work to reconcile the very different bills passed by their chambers.  The Senate cuts SNAP by $4.1 billion and the House by nearly $40 billion.  The agriculture provisions also take different approaches with corn and soybean farmers favoring the Senate bill and rice, peanuts and other growers preferring the approach in the House bill.

The Farm Bill (PL 112-24), passed in 2008, expires on September 30.  Without an extension or reauthorization, the bill’s agriculture programs will revert to provisions set in 1949, while nutrition programs will remain funded.  However, even if there is no agreement on a new farm bill, the various SNAP cuts identified could find their way into broader deficit reduction efforts.

The post CHN: Advocates’ All-Out Effort to Stop Deep Cuts to SNAP Falls Short appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

On July 1, student loan rates doubled because Congress failed to agree on legislation to avert the scheduled increase.  After a month of proposals and counter-proposals, Congress enacted a solution that would result in undergraduates paying 3.86 percent interest, close to the 3.4 percent students were paying before July 1, and much less than the 6.8 percent loan rates had risen to after the lower rate expired.

In May, the House approved the Smarter Solutions for Students Act (H.R. 1911) which pegged interest rates on student loans to the market and allowed those rates to change over the lifetime of the loan. Because this legislation would have let interest rates rise too much, President Obama announced that he would veto the legislation if it reached his office. On Wednesday July 24, the Senate amended H.R. 1911, tying interest rates to market rates, but with fixed rates for the lifetime of the loan. The Obama Administration supported the Senate’s version. On Wednesday July 31, the Senate’s amended version passed easily in the House by a vote of 392 to 31. With that vote on final passage, the bill was sent to President Obama on August 1.  The President, who has already expressed his support, is expected to sign the bill.

This year, with the new legislation in place, undergraduates would pay an interest rate of 3.86 percent, graduate students would pay a rate of 5.41 percent, and PLUS loan users – graduate students and parents of students  – would pay a rate of 6.41 percent. All of these rates are lower than the existing fixed rates of 6.8 percent for Stafford loans and 7.9 percent for PLUS loans.  The enacted bill will adjust the rate in future years based on changes in the 10 year Treasury note, but limits undergraduate loan rates to 8.25 percent, graduate loan rates to 9.5 percent, and PLUS loan rates to 10.5 percent.

A group of senators opposed the bill because of its market-based approach to student loans, which will lead to higher rates than students were paying before July.  Senators Warren (D-MA) and Reed (D-RI) sponsored an unsuccessful amendment to keep the flat rate of 3.4 percent for another year, leaving time for further negotiations on how to keep rates low.  After this amendment failed, 16 Democrats and one independent voted against final passage. Originally, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was in favor of this freeze, but eventually came to support the bipartisan compromise.

The Democratic opposition argues that the bill does not offer a permanent solution to fix the student loan crisis. The plan fails to address the existing $1 trillion student loan debt, the ever increasing tuition fees, and government’s profits from these loans. (The Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate bill would generate $715 million in federal revenue over 10 years, less than the original House version.)  Further, while the compromise may lower interest rates on student loans below 6.8 percent in the next two to three years, in the long run the new system may increase rates.

The bipartisan group of Senators that passed the compromise pleaded for the support of the Democratic opposition, claiming that any action is better than inaction and the discussion on student loans would continue, especially because the Higher Education Act is scheduled for reauthorization next year.

The post Student Loan Bill Enacted appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The House was unable to pass a farm bill with a nutrition title because the $20 billion in cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP/food stamps) approved by the House Agriculture Committee was not deep enough for some of the most right-wing members.  That proposal would have eliminated SNAP for 2 million very low-income people.  Instead, the House passed a very partisan farm bill with the nutrition provisions left out.  (For details, see the July 22 Human Needs Report.)  Now, the House leadership is reported to have crafted a new stand-alone bill including massive SNAP cuts – doubling the cuts to $40 billion, with 4 million more people losing SNAP and millions more seeing their benefits reduced.  The new bill may make it to the House floor in September.

The bill would retain all the harsh SNAP cuts in the original bill plus those that passed on the House floor before the nutrition title was axed from the farm bill.  One successful amendment would provide an incentive for states to drop unemployed people from SNAP even if they are actively looking for work but cannot find a job.  After cutting off the jobless person, the state would receive federal dollars.  The new bill according to reports would make millions more unemployed people without children eligible for SNAP for only three months out of every three years.  For the rest of the time, they cannot receive benefits unless they are working at least half-time.  Under current law, those harsh limits can be waived if the locality has a high unemployment rate.  The new legislation would end this waiver provision, now utilized in at least 45 states.  No matter how high the local unemployment rate is, 18-50 year olds not raising children would be denied SNAP benefits for 33 out of 36 months.  According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 4 million people could be affected, among them at least 1.6 million women.  The average income of these childless people is 22 percent of the federal poverty line (that is, only a little over $2,500 a year in income).

The farm subsidy provisions that passed the House increased benefits for certain farmers, including a $9 billion increase in crop insurance subsidies over 10 years.  Farm subsidies overwhelmingly are received by large corporate farms.  Three-quarters of the $23 billion in farm subsidies went to the largest 15-20 percent of farms.  One beneficiary of farm subsidies is Representative Stephen Fincher (R-TN), who attracted attention by defending the original SNAP cuts in the farm bill in a Memphis speech, saying:  “The role of citizens, of Christians, of humanity is to take care of each other, but not for Washington to steal from those in the country and give to others in the country.”  In 2012 alone, Rep. Fincher received $70,000 in farm subsidies; between 1999 and 2012, he accumulated $3.48 million in subsidies, according to the Environmental Working Group.  It is not known whether Rep. Fincher would support the doubling of SNAP cuts, targeted to the poorest of the poor.

(For more details about the proposed new SNAP cuts, see the Statement by Robert Greenstein, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.)

The post Willing to Deny Food to 4 Million More Poor People: Rumors of House Plans to Double SNAP Cuts appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

Once upon a time, the House and Senate Appropriations Committees sent 12 separate spending bills to the floor of each body, after the full Congress agreed on the total funding they had to divide up.  Conference committees would resolve the differences, and bills would be enacted and sent to the President.  That was then.

This year, the House and Senate are $91 billion apart on their FY 2014 appropriations totals, with the House assuming that spending will not exceed the limits set by another year of sequestration cuts, and the Senate assuming sequestration will not take place.  The gap is made even larger by the fact that the House violates the Budget Control Act’s requirement that defense and “non-defense” are cut equally.  Instead, the House spares defense and cuts domestic programs more deeply.

On the House side, the domestic cuts are so deep that there may not be a majority to pass them.  That was the case when the House leadership had to pull the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development bill from the floor for lack of votes.  In the Senate, the leadership sought to bring big domestic bills to the floor, to show the funding they were willing to provide and contrast it with the deep cuts the House is making.  (See the July 22 Human Needs Report  for more detail about the Senate Transportation-HUD bill.)  However, while a large bipartisan majority in the Senate was at first willing to end debate on the Transportation-HUD spending bill, the bill was stymied later when only one Republican, Senator Susan Collins (R-ME) would join in voting to advance the bill towards final consideration on the floor.  So Congress left for its August recess with neither body able to pass the T-HUD bill.

While it was always a safe bet to assume that Congress would not be able to enact many individual appropriations bills, by the time Congress left town it seemed clear that they would be hard-pressed to pass any.  So in order to keep programs running after the October 1 beginning of FY 2014, Congress will have to agree upon a temporary spending measure, a.k.a. a Continuing Resolution, for as long as they choose, as they continue to work on spending choices for the rest of the fiscal year.

Ordinarily, that would not be too difficult.  Congress would continue spending with each program at this year’s level for a temporary period.  But this year, continuing at this year’s level would run afoul of the deficit reduction law (the Budget Control Act).  If Congress cannot agree on ways to stop the sequestration cuts by changing the law, it must appropriate about $20 billion less in FY 2014 than this year’s spending, and complying with the law means that the full $20 billion must be cut from defense (the domestic programs will have already taken their share of the hit).  That would not be very popular, but if Congress refused to make that cut or to enact changes in the Budget Control Act, the $20 billion Pentagon cut would be triggered automatically across each defense account 10 days after Congress adjourned at the end of 2013.

So Congress has to decide something before the end of 2013, at least if they want to avoid those Pentagon cuts.  And if they do not approve some form of spending bill by September 30, great swaths of federal programs will shut down – also not popular.   They don’t have much time to do it.  The House calendar for September includes only 9 days in session.  They will be out the week of September 23-27, and will return on the very last day of the fiscal year, September 30.

Forestalling the Crunch.  When Congress is at home in August, they will hear from constituents and gauge how much people object to the current sequester cuts and the additional ones looming for FY 2014.  Some, including House Appropriations Committee Chair Harold Rogers (R-KY), saw the failure to take up the Transportation-HUD bill as proof that sequestration has to go.  “With this action, the House has declined to proceed on the implementation of the very budget it adopted just three months ago. Thus, I believe that the House has made its choice: Sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end,” Rogers said.  But for Rogers, the preferred approach would replace the appropriations cuts (also called cuts to “discretionary” programs) with cuts to mandatory programs such as SNAP/food stamps, Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security.  The Transportation-HUD implosion did illuminate divisions among House Republicans.  Some of the most right-wing members are willing to make deep cuts in discretionary as well as mandatory programs, while other members are more supportive of funding programs (including the Pentagon). The Senate-passed budget resolution took a different approach, getting rid of most discretionary cuts by a combination of nearly a trillion dollars of new revenue over ten years plus some mandatory savings (generally attempting to avoid service reductions).  The President has also opposed achieving all the deficit reduction through domestic cuts, either discretionary or mandatory.

Out of this mix, it is hard to predict whether some may push so far in the direction of cuts that others simply cannot agree, leading to an impasse that forces a government shutdown.  Funding will stop for federal employees, nutrition aid, housing and home energy assistance, Head Start, education, environmental protection, public health, justice, children’s services, and many other areas.

Whether or not that occurs, some kind of temporary Continuing Resolution will probably pass.  If it keeps government going for about two months, the search for a longer-term solution will bump right into the next deadline to extend the U.S. Treasury’s authority to borrow (the “debt ceiling”).  Treasury’s capacity to borrow is likely to be exhausted by sometime in November (the exact date is uncertain).  It could be that Congress will be trying to work out spending options when the debt ceiling is reached – a kind of double crunch that those most opposed to spending may want to use to force cuts.   But with the public strongly opposed to self-inflicted crises, and with Republicans divided about how far to go with cuts, such brinksmanship may not work.

FY 2014 Appropriations box score:

The full House has passed the following appropriations bills:
Defense, Energy-Water, Homeland Security, and Military Construction-VA .
The full House Appropriations Committee has passed all appropriations bills except Interior-Environment and Labor-HHS-Education.

The full Senate has not passed any appropriations bills.
The full Senate Appropriations Committee has passed all appropriations bills except Interior-Environment.

The post The Approaching Crunch: Agreement on Spending Nowhere Near as Deadlines Loom appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

The Senate leadership will illustrate those differences by making the Transportation-Housing and Urban Development Appropriations bill (S. 1243) the first it takes to the floor.  Majority Leader Reid (D-NV) filed a motion to cut off debate on July 18; that cloture vote will take place on Tuesday, July 23.  The leadership expects to be able to get 60 votes so that the bill can be considered.   Six Republicans voted for the Transportation-HUD bill in committee; if they join with all the Democrats and Independents to cut off debate, there will be enough votes.

The Senate Transportation-HUD bill is $10 billion or 20 percent larger than the House version.  With both the House and Senate Appropriations Committees having acted on this bill, the differences to specific programs are clear.  For example, the Community Development Fund is funded at $3.295 billion in the Senate bill, but at only $1.697 billion in the House.  The Senate bill has nearly $1 billion more than the House for the rental voucher program.  While even the House bill has more funding than this year’s $17.9 billion (including sequester cuts), its funding level is not adequate to reverse more than about one-quarter of this year’s lost vouchers, and so would continue the elimination of 100,000 rental vouchers, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.  The Senate bill provides enough funds to undo most of the up to 140,000 vouchers lost this year.

The House cuts funding for public housing by 16 percent below this year’s spending (including sequestration cuts).  Coming on top of several rounds of cuts affecting public housing programs over the past few years, maintenance and repairs will fall farther behind, with more units lost due to disrepair and families forced to live in substandard conditions.  The Senate provides $838 million more for public housing capital and operations than the House.  While the Senate’s funding does not undo all the losses of the past, it comes closer to meeting current needs.

Almost every program receives less in funding in the House bill than the Senate’s, unsurprisingly, including Homeless Assistance Grants (the House is 7.6 percent lower than the Senate)and lead hazard abatement (the House is 58 percent lower than the Senate and 56 percent lower than current year spending).  (For more comparisons of House and Senate Appropriations Committee funding levels for housing programs, see the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the National Low Income Housing Coalition.)

In the transportation side of the bill, the Senate increases TIGER infrastructure grants to localities by $50 million (for a total of $550 million).  The House zeroes out this popular program, and rescinds $237 million previously appropriated but as yet unspent.

The Senate leadership wants to take up the Transportation-HUD bill in order to show the harmfulness of continuing the sequestration cuts, to try to build support for a negotiation with the House to replace the new round of cuts in FY 2014 with new revenues and other savings, mostly but not exclusively in Medicare.

The Senate leaders may also wish to bring the Labor-HHS-Education bill to the floor.  There the differences between House and Senate funding are particularly gaping.  The Senate bill is funded at $164.3 billion, about $43 billion more than the House (or 35 percent above House spending).  While neither the House Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee nor the full Committee has taken up the bill so far, the full Senate Appropriations Committee has completed work on appropriations for these departments.  The House agreed-upon spending total for Labor-HHS-Education is 18.6 percent lower than this year’s levels, counting the sequester cuts.  The Senate bill is higher than this year’s spending, allowing for some of this year’s cuts to be reversed.

While a handful of appropriations bills may make it to the Senate or House floor, the prospects for the House and Senate resolving their differences and sending separate funding bills to the President for signing are dim.  Instead, Congress is likely to roll up most if not all of the appropriations bills into one stopgap spending measure (called a Continuing Resolution, or CR).  Agreeing even on such a temporary spending bill will be difficult.  The existing deficit reduction legislation, the Budget Control Act, requires that Department of Defense spending be reduced by $20 billion below current levels, so a temporary spending measure that simply continues this year’s funding will not be possible without changing the law.  (Domestic appropriations bills do not have to be immediately reduced; most of the required domestic reductions can be achieved by automatic cuts in Medicare and other mandatory programs.)

Reluctance to cut Pentagon programs, if nothing else, may force negotiators to the bargaining table to stop the sequestration cuts.  The President has threatened to veto legislation that continues sequestration.  Both he and the Senate leadership are calling for increased revenues to be part of a replacement package.  How close Congress will come to allowing a government shutdown when the fiscal year ends on September 30 is not knowable at this point; all that is sure now is that bridging the gaps between House and Senate will not be easy.   (See House  and Senate funding totals for each appropriations bill.)

The post CHN: Senate to Show the Cost of Continuing Sequester Cuts: Will Bring Transportation-Housing Appropriations to the Floor appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

Already modest, SNAP benefits are now set at less than $1.50 per meal per person and will be further reduced after a temporary increase expires on November 1, which will slash $25 in benefits per month for a family of three. Nutrition advocates hail H.R. 1947’s defeat in light of its deep cuts to the SNAP program.  The underlying bill would cut SNAP by $20.5 billion, denying benefits altogether to 2 million people and reducing benefits by $90 a month for another 850,000 households.  Amendments adopted on the floor would result in even more losing assistance.

A contentious amendment that severely weakened Democratic support for the bill, introduced by Representative Steve Southerland (R – FL), would allow state pilot programs to mandate work requirements for SNAP recipients. States participating in the program would be required to pay for the cost of training and employment up front. They would also share equally with the federal government any revenues from reducing expenditures on SNAP. Nutrition and low-income advocates fear that this would provide incentive for states to remove families from their SNAP participant rolls in order to increase revenue. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ Stacy Dean was quoted in a Politico article saying “I can’t remember a time when policymakers ever considered giving states a kickback for refusing to serve unemployed mothers with young children.” The amendment, which Republicans praised as following in the footsteps of 1996 welfare reform, was approved almost entirely along party lines by a 227-198 vote – just minutes before the vote on the full farm bill.

Only one Democrat, Representative Jim Cooper (D – TN), voted in favor of the amendment. And of the sixty-two Republicans who voted against H.R. 1947, all but one had voted for it.

An amendment by Tim Huelskamp (R – KS), which sought to create extra work requirements for SNAP recipients and cut SNAP by an additional $9.5 million, was easily defeated 175-250. No Democrats voted in favor and 57 Republicans voted against it.

Another harsh amendment aimed at SNAP recipients was offered by Representative Richard Hudson (R – NC). It would make drug testing a requirement for all SNAP applicants. Currently, states are able to drug test applicants who have a prior history of drug crime, but this amendment would make such tests routine, adding another hoop for applicants to jump through. Nutrition advocates worry that this provision would impact the children of SNAP-eligible parents who might be deterred from applying for the program. Of the 48.5 million people in poverty, about half are children. Evaluations of drug-testing programs for TANF recipients showed that virtually no illegal drug use was detected, and were not found to be cost-effective. The amendment was approved by voice vote.

Long-term SNAP supporter Representative Jim McGovern (D – MA) introduced an amendment that would restore the $20.5 billion 10-year cut to SNAP.  The amendment had great support from House Democrats but did not have enough votes to pass; it failed 188 to 234, mostly along party lines. Anti-hunger advocates were pleased by the strong show of support for the amendment – and even some bipartisan support, with five Republicans voting yes.

The House leadership must now decide upon a path forward. Majority Leader Cantor (R-VA) has stressed his party’s desire to pass a bill before the August recess, but the feasibility of this wish is uncertain because appropriations bills are expected to require substantial amounts of floor time when Congress returns from the July 4^th recess.

Rep. Southerland has suggested that H.R. 1947 return to the floor without his amendment, although its removal might not be enough to pass the bill. Many in Congress consider a one-year extension of the 2008 farm bill the easiest and most viable option, although certain programs like the Wetland Reserves would lose authorization. The current farm bill has already been extended once, in January 2013.

In a recent development, some House conservatives have called to split the farm bill into two parts (farm policy and nutrition policy), ending years of precedent for passing the two issues together. Agriculture Chairman Frank Lucas (R –OK), along with many others in Congress, finds this idea unacceptable because farm provisions have always needed the votes of members more concerned about nutrition programs to pass. Instead, Lucas and his colleagues are deciding upon trying to pass a bill aimed at garnering more Republican votes or one that will win more Democrats to their side.

Congress has until September 30, when the farm bill expires, to make a decision. If nothing happens, SNAP will continue because SNAP is a permanently authorized program, but the various farm support and conservation provisions will end.

The post CHN: Farm Bill Fails on House Floor – What’s Next? appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

S. 954’s $4.1 billion cut to SNAP –achieved by limiting states’ ability to operate the “Heat and Eat” program and the addition of administrative burdens to states – will greatly affect certain low-income families nationwide. As estimated by the Congressional Budget Office, about 500,000 households will lose $90 in SNAP benefits each month under this proposal.

Many advocates are also deeply disappointed by the inclusion of the Vitter Amendment in the Senate farm bill. The Vitter Amendment precludes convicted sex offenders and murderers from participating in the SNAP program – no matter how long ago they committed the crime and in disregard for their penance and later contributions to society.  Further, the amendment will reduce or eliminate benefits for the whole household, including children, by requiring that individual’s income be counted  in determining the household’s eligibility or benefit levels for SNAP, while denying the ex-offender any SNAP benefits. It requires that all SNAP applicants write a statement disclosing whether any member of their household has been convicted of one of the aforementioned crimes, which may discourage some applications.  (For more, see this blog post from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ President and Founder Bob Greenstein.)

It is considered almost certain that a similar amendment will be presented when the House bill comes to the floor.

On the House side, there was doubt that there were enough votes to pass the farm bill, with some right wing members wanting even deeper SNAP cuts, and a majority of Democrats opposing the harsh cuts already in the House Agriculture Committee’s bill (H.R. 1947).    However, the announcement that Speaker Boehner (R-OH) planned to vote for the measure signaled pressure by the House leadership to win enough votes for passage, and floor action in the House is now expected to begin on Wednesday, June 19, with a final vote possible the next day.The House Rules Committee will determine the amendments to be debated on the House floor.  One or more amendments are expected to make the SNAP cuts larger, such as increasing the reduction to $33 billion, as proposed in the House-passed Budget Resolution.  Speaker Boehner, although supporting the bill, has expressed opposition to its dairy provisions; amendments to alter these may also be considered.

Top House Agriculture Committee Democrat Collin Peterson (D-MN) has said that he expects 150 Republican votes for the House bill at best, while Republican Representative Robert Goodlatte (R-VA) calls this number optimistic.  It may be that more Republican votes will fall into line as the House leadership presses for passage.  Some Democratic votes are likely to be needed for passage, and they may be forthcoming, despite the harsh SNAP cuts.  Ranking Agriculture Committee Member Peterson supported H.R. 1947 in Committee and was joined by 12 other Committee Democrats in voting for the bill (8 Democrats voted no).  However, many Democrats oppose the SNAP cuts in the bill, and more might join the opposition if amendments succeed in making the cuts worse.

Nutrition advocacy groups such as the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) strongly oppose the short- and long-term effects of the $20.5 billion cut, which would deny SNAP to around 2 million people currently eligible and take free school meals away from over 200,000 low-income children. (Read more about these cuts in a statement from FRAC.)

House Republicans are determined not to let the bill die on the floor, especially after last year’s humiliating stalemate which forced Congress to pass a temporary extension of the farm bill, delaying the House debate until this year.  Anti-hunger advocates will press their opposition to the bill, preferring its failure in the House as long as it includes large SNAP cuts.

The post CHN: Senate Passes Farm Bill with Cuts to SNAP as House Prepares to Bring Even More Devastating Bill to the Floor appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.

Following the lead of the House-passed Budget Resolution, the Appropriations Committee divided up $967 billion in funding on May 21, making the assumption that a second year of cuts will take place.  While the deficit reduction legislation that mandated sequestration does call for this total, the House violates the law by ignoring the required subtotals for defense and non-defense spending.  The House committee approved $512.5 billion for defense, or about $15 billion more than the deficit reduction law allows in FY 2014.  The House committee also cuts $20.6 billion more than the law calls for in all the other programs subject to the sequester cuts.

The funding levels provided to each of the Appropriations subcommittees (called the “302(b) allocations”) make it possible for them to report out bills.  The first approved by the full House Appropriations Committee on May 21 was for Military Construction-Veterans’ Affairs.  This non-controversial bill is one of the few that receives more funding for FY 2014 than it got this year – a 3.4 percent increase, even assuming the lower sequestration total.

The House Appropriations Committee’s priorities are clearly with the military, veterans and homeland security – these are the only areas that get increases over current spending.  In marked contrast, the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education will be cut 18.6 percent below this year’s levels.  The Transportation-Housing and Urban Development spending bill will be cut 9 percent.  Interior-Environment spending will be cut 14 percent, and Energy-Water will be reduced by 11.2 percent.  Financial Services, which includes funding to implement the Dodd-Frank legislation for regulation and consumer protection related to the finance industry, is cut 14.6 percent.  (See the House allocations for each Appropriations subcommittee. See this table for more information on 302(b) subcommittee allocations, compiled by Democratic Staff of the House Committee on Appropriations.)

This year’s sequestration amounts to an approximately 5 percent cuts to domestic programs that are not exempt.  These reductions have resulted in early closings and cancelled summer programs in Head Start, followed by announcements around the country that classes will be shut down and enrollments reduced in the fall.  If a cut well over three times this size were inflicted in FY 2014, many more children would be denied Head Start.  Similarly, if cuts to meals for seniors were more than tripled, programs that are now reducing the number of days they deliver meals or closing dining rooms would have to make drastic additional reductions.  Rental housing voucher cutbacks so far have meant no new vouchers are available in many jurisdictions.  If these cuts were multiplied, housing authorities would be unable to avoid taking away vouchers that now keep people from becoming homeless.    (For more information about this year’s sequestration cuts, click here.)

Appropriations bills do not become law until final versions are negotiated between the House and Senate.  That will be harder than ever for FY 2014.  The House and Senate have not agreed on a total figure for appropriations – a key decision point in budget resolutions.  In contrast to the House budget’s $967 billion total, the Senate’s budget calls for $1.058 trillion, based on the assumption that the additional sequestration cuts will not occur.  (The Senate budget makes up well over $1 trillion in deficit reduction through FY 2021 by a combination of revenue increases and savings in areas mainly including Medicare, farm supports, the Pentagon, and some additional domestic appropriations cuts). The Senate budget resolution specifies that defense spending will total $552 billion in FY 2014, and domestic/international funding will add up to $506 billion.

The Senate Appropriations Committee has not yet divided up these totals into its own 302(b) allocations, but expects to do so during the week of June 17, when it also expects to take up the Military Construction-Veterans Affairs appropriations bill.  But its higher total means that there will be substantial differences between the House and Senate on most appropriations bills.  In the absence of an agreement between the two bodies, the deficit reduction law now in place will require the lower total of the House, but will also require the House to cut about $15 billion from its recommended funding for defense.

Neither House nor Senate appropriators are enthusiastic about this looming result.  Chairman Hal Rogers of the House Appropriations Committee called for “…a budget compromise that will undo the damaging sequestration law and give us a single, common top-line allocation with the Senate” when his committee passed its appropriations allocations on May 21.  Chairwoman Barbara Mikulski of the Senate Appropriations Committee is insisting on passing appropriations bills that are not subject to continuing sequestration cuts.  But, while appropriators are trying to pass separate spending bills according to “regular order,” it is easy to imagine that as the beginning of the new fiscal year approaches (October 1), threats of government shutdown will intensify in the face of seeming inability to bridge the wide differences.

Rearranging the Deck Chairs.  As reports of harmful sequestration cuts accumulate, some Senators are looking for a way out.  Some are seeking increased flexibility for federal agencies to determine how to make the required cuts, to get out from under the across-the-board equal percentage cuts the law calls for.  Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL), the ranking (senior) Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, has a proposal to allow agencies to move a limited amount of funding around among accounts.  Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Pat Toomey (R-PA) have similar proposals, with agency decisions to alter the automatic cuts subject to review by Congress.  Other bills, such as a plan being developed by Senators Inhofe (R-OK), Toomey and Manchin (D-WV), would require the President to submit an alternative set of cuts, which could be rejected by Congress.  All these plans would substitute different cuts in appropriations for the ones now in place.  Advocates for human needs programs are quite concerned that this might spare some programs, but could easily lead to even more damaging cuts to programs that are less popular or known, but that provide important services to vulnerable people.  Without revenues from fair sources and long-term savings from the Pentagon, key players such as Senate Budget Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) believe that human needs program cuts cannot be successfully replaced.

The post CHN: House Appropriations Committee Sets Funding Levels for FY 2014: Domestic Programs Slashed While Pentagon is Protected appeared first on Coalition on Human Needs.