A busy weekend in DC with the Senate bipartisan negotiators releasing their long-discussed plan to deal with the Supplemental Spending plan to give funds to Ukraine and Israel and having a major overhaul on border/immigration policy. Additionally, House Speaker Mike Johnson announced that the House Republican leadership was changing strategy on dealing with the White House Supplemental Spending Bill and only approving money for Israel leaving Ukraine and other issues for another day.
House Republicans initially responded to the White House request for Ukraine, Israel, and Asia-Pacific money with legislation which gave money to Israel to buy American arms but paid for the package by deleting funds for the IRS, which had been approved by Democrats to strengthen enforcement. Cutting IRS headcount has long been a priority for Congressional Republicans. Now House Republicans propose passing legislation giving Israel $17.6B in a clean bill. The House Republican proposal has nothing for Ukraine, Asia-Pacific or plans to address the crisis at the southern border. The Speaker has suggested that the Israel aid bill could come up this week. It could put some Democrats who support Israel in a bind as they would not want to be put in a position of voting against Israel.
While the House Speaker was proposing the Israel package, the Senate leadership unveiled the long-awaited spending bill combined with a bipartisan border and immigration bill. However, the package was immediately attacked by both the right and the left. Some Republicans went so far as to attack the future of Leader McConnell’s position as they gave strong statements against the border bill. On the left, progressives attacked both aid to Israel and the clampdown at the border. Leader Schumer is working to get an initial vote on the new bill as early as Wednesday.
Here is the official summary of the deal.
Tax legislation
Last week the House passed bipartisan tax legislation with two goals: first to extend the Child Tax Credit designed to help poor families with children, and second to extend expiring business tax credits for research and development and expensing plant and equipment. The vote in the House was 357YES to 70NO, demonstrating a rare moment of bipartisanship in a sharply divided body.
However, the Senate seems to be a different story with some Republicans upset that they were left out of the negotiations and others opposed to the expansion of the Child Tax Credit. With a closely divided 51R to 49D Senate there will need to be bipartisanship in the Senate as it will require 60 votes to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster. Opposition in both chambers comes from the extremes on both sides; some of the far left felt that the child tax provisions didn’t go far enough and on the far right there was opposition to the tax credit’s expansion. However, the lopsided, bipartisan House vote demonstrates that it should be possible to find a way forward for the bill especially with the business community pushing to get the economic tax provisions passed in time for their 2024 tax filings.
Shutdown deadline
With Congress focused on the issues of border/immigration policy, aid to Israel and Ukraine, plus the bipartisan tax bill, it would be easy to forget that Congress is approaching dual government shutdown deadlines of March 1 and March 8. Ag, energy, military construction, VA, transportation, and HUD expire on the 1st with the rest of the government including defense and HHS facing the March 8 date.
In addition to a very full Congressional agenda with issues critical to national defense and global challenges, Congress is also currently scheduled to take a recess for the Presidents’ Day break. The House is currently scheduled to leave on February 17 and not return until March 4, and the Senate February 12 to 23. From my House and Senate aide days, I know how Members look forward to their breaks, and this is especially true in election years when they can be home and campaigning. However, the public push back of the government shutting down when Congress isn’t even in session seems like an embarrassment that might be too great even for Members of Congress. We will see.
