Appropriations

On Thursday, the House and Senate approved a continuing resolution (CR) to fund the government until December 22.  As part of the deal, they freed up some funds to help states keep the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) going until that time. Members of the House voted 235-193 for the legislation with about a dozen Democrats supporting the bill.  The Senate approved the measure 81-14.  The bill now heads to the President for his signature which is expected today before the midnight deadline.

Congress and the Administration is now negotiating a larger budget deal to raise the funding caps and hopefully provide additional funding to funding bills, including the Labor, Health and Human Services bill that funds CDC.  Coming to a consensus on this budget deal is likely to be challenging and will make the next few weeks very interesting.  Members of both parties want to increase Defense spending, but Democrats (whose votes are needed in the Senate to pass any final funding bill) have long insisted on corresponding increases to non-defense spending as well, which some Republicans do not support.  NCSD has long been pushing for restoration of the FY17 $5 million cut to STD prevention at CDC and increasing funding of any kind depends on a larger budget deal to raise the caps.  Stay tuned!

Tax Plan

After Senators voted on Saturday (51-49) to pass tax reform legislation, lawmakers are working to produce a final conference report that will resolve differences between the versions of the bill that passed the House and Senate.  The House voted (222-192) on Monday to go to conference.  On Wednesday, the Senate voted to send its bill to a House-Senate conference committee.

Most reports indicate that the conference committee will likely only meet once and could produce a final bill that more closely resembles the Senate bill—including the repeal of the Affordable Care Act’s requirement for individuals to have insurance coverage (called the individual mandate)—since Republicans have a much smaller margin of support in the Senate with only two GOP votes to spare.

Informal talks among the GOP have already begun in an effort to resolve differences between the two bills—you can read about differences between the two bills here.  GOP leaders hope to send final legislation to President Trump for his signature before the holiday recess.