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The Human Needs Report is the Coalition on Human Needs' newsletter
on national policy issues affecting low-income and vulnerable populations.
It is published every other week while Congress is in session.
Article from the January 14, 2011 edition
CHN Human Needs Report :
With each new Congress, the majority party can change the rules under which they will operate. On January 5, the House Republican majority adopted a set of rules along party lines (238-191) that will govern the House the next two years. The new rules make it easy to cut taxes but significantly more difficult to expand spending programs, including low-income entitlement programs. Republicans have long contended that federal deficits solely reflect a spending problem and not a revenue problem (even though federal revenues over the last several years are well below historic levels). The House rules in place for the 112th Congress are a stunning reflection of this premise. The rules set the stage for more tax cuts that will increase the deficit, placing the burden of reducing the deficit even more heavily on program cuts.
The following rules were adopted:
- The pay-as-you-go (paygo) rule in effect during the prior Congress required any tax cut or increase in mandatory spending (like SNAP, Medicare or Medicaid, programs not subject to annual appropriations) to be offset with either mandatory spending cuts or revenue increases. The new cut-as-you-go (cutgo) rule only allows increases in mandatory spending if offset by cuts in other spending, not an increase in taxes; but new tax cuts do not have to be paid for. The first bill the House Republicans plan to offer would repeal the health care reform act passed last year which, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would increase the budget deficit by $230 billion over 10 years. The House rule exempts that bill from cutgo. Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) was also given the authority to exempt other policies from cutgo.
This rule paves the way for making permanent the Bush tax cuts for high-income families while making it extremely difficult to continue improvements in programs like the refundable Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit for low-income working families. These refundable credits are considered spending programs and extensions would need to be offset by cutting other programs.
- One piece of legislation left over from last year is determining the spending levels for discretionary programs that are funded on an annual basis. Last year the House did not pass a budget or any of the 12 appropriation bills. Since the start of FY 2011, programs have continued to operate under a series of continuing resolutions (CRs), the latest expiring on March 4. The new House rules give Budget Committee Chairman Ryan the unprecedented authority to determine the overall spending level and revenue limits for FY 2011.
- The new rules make it more difficult to increase discretionary spending by cutting other discretionary programs. Instead, appropriators can create a “lockbox” which mandates that the cuts be applied to deficit reduction. Appropriators will also be allowed to set limits on spending from the Highway Trust Fund. (Building a surplus in the fund is one way to mask the size of the deficit.)
- Legislation that increases mandatory spending over a period of four decades by more than $5 billion and is not offset would be considered out of order. Estimating costs over this length of time would be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
- It is often politically difficult for members of Congress to vote to raise the ceiling on the national debt. In recent years the House operated under the so-called Gephardt rule which allowed the House to automatically increase the debt ceiling when it adopted its budget. The new rules will revert to requiring members to vote to increase the debt ceiling. Republicans have signaled that they will use this vote to extract concessions from Democrats which could include harsh limits on spending.
The rules just described apply only to the House, and they set up likely confrontations with the Senate. For further analysis see the Center on Budget and Policy Priority report.
The Senate has not yet made changes to its rules for the 112th Congress. In order to pass the changes with a simple majority, versus a supermajority (67 votes) the changes to Senate rules must be voted on the first day of the new Congress. So on January 5, after swearing in the new members and recognizing Senator Mikulski (D-MD) as the longest serving woman in the Senate, Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) immediately ‘recessed’ rather than ‘adjourned’ – extending the legislative ‘day’ to January 25 when the Senate is scheduled to return. This gives Democrats who have grown increasingly frustrated with Republicans’ use of the filibuster in the 111th Congress more time to build support for a proposal to curtail its use.
A group of Democratic Senators led by Tom Udall (NM), Tom Harkin (IA), Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Jeff Merkley (OR) have introduced S Res 10. The purpose of the proposal is to protect the voice of the minority, while expediting the consideration of legislation and nominations. In recent years under the 1975 Senate cloture rule (ending debate and allowing a vote), it has become standard procedure for minority filibusters to require 30 hours to elapse before a vote to end debate is taken. The most significant reform aimed at discouraging frivolous filibusters and making them public is replacing the current ‘silent’ filibuster with the ‘talking’ filibuster. This period of continuous debate would end when no Senators have further comments to offer. If passed, the proposal would force Senators who want additional debate to actually hold the floor, increasing public accountability and discouraging the use of the filibuster. Under S Res 10 procedural motions to begin considering legislation on the Senate floor (currently subject to filibuster) could not be filibustered. Instead, such procedural motions could be debated for no more than two hours.
Currently just one Senator can place a secret ‘hold’ on legislation or executive or judicial branch nominations, effectively blocking consideration. Secret holds would be eliminated. The Senate Leader now can effectively limit the number of amendments to a bill. S Res 10 would allow amendments from both minority and majority members that have been filed in a timely manner and are germane to the bill.
Mindful that theirs is a tenuous majority status, Democrats will be negotiating with Republicans to make the Senate run more efficiently without stripping the minority of its power.
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