House Cloakroom:
Major Floor Action
- Cybersecurity Bill – Next week, the House will consider H.R. 4061, a cybersecurity enhancement bill which was approved by the Science Committee by voice vote in November 2009. The bill would reauthorize several National Science Foundation programs that aim to enhance cybersecurity. CBO estimates (PDF) that H.R. 4061 would cost $639 million over five years and $320 million after 2014.
- Debt Limit Increase – The House could consider a $1.9 trillion increase of the statutory debt limit as early as next week. The bill would increase the debt limit by 15.3 percent, from $12.394 trillion to $14.294 trillion. The $1.9 trillion increase is expected to ensure that Democrats will not have to bring another increase before Congress prior to the November elections.
Major Committee Action
- House Budget Committee will hold a hearing on the Fiscal 2011 budget with Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury, on Wednesday.
- House Ways and Means Committee will also hold a hearing on the 2011 budget with Peter R. Orszag, director, Office of Management and Budget, on Wednesday
Senate Cloakroom:
Analysis
The President will release his budget next week, kicking off weeks of hearings and discussions about funding our nation’s priorities. However, the real news will once again be what is happening behind closed doors. Private discussions will continue on yet another stimulus and liberals must try to find a way to move Obamacare, perhaps through the politically poisonous reconciliation process. Even after the President’s State of the Union address, many questions remain in the Senate.
Major Floor Action
The Senate will try to dispense with two nominees early next week: M. Patricia Smith to be solicitor of the Department of Labor and Martha Johnson to be administrator of the General Services Administration. Senator-elect Scott Brown (R-MA) could be sworn in next week as well.
Major Committee Action
- The Armed Services Committee will hold a hearing on the Fiscal Year 2011 defense budget and on the military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy.
- The Senate Banking Committee will hold a hearing on efforts to control high-risk activities by banks.
- The Finance Committee will hold a hearing on various health care proposals.
In the desperate attempt to portray their massive new spending bill as “budget neutral,” Congress and the Obama Administration are relying on more desperate measures to hide the true cost of the legislation. The Senate Finance Committee bill includes Section 1209, aka the “Fail-Safe Mechanism to Prevent Increase in Federal Budget Deficit.” But it is more than just a budget gimmick, it is an unprecedented change in the balance of power from Congress to the President that ought to unite liberals and conservatives in opposition to it. This is either a dangerous or cynical game.
Under Section 1209, if the President certifies that the changes under this legislation cause an increase in the federal deficit, “… the President shall instruct the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of the Treasury to reduce such credits and subsidies …” that are provided under the legislation.
In other words, the level of federal assistance that is being promised may not actually be delivered. Reducing the subsidies would fall disproportionately on the lowest income levels. Having trapped millions of Americans into buying a product they cannot afford, Congress now gives the President the full unchecked authority to reduce those subsidies (which are worth up to $16,500 a year for a family of four).
This provision abdicates Congress’ responsibility to provide alternative means of lowering costs. This is just another massive relinquishment of power by Congress to the Obama Czar State. Consider if such power were given to the President in other government assistance programs? Imagine the protests from senior groups if such power were in the hands of the Commissioner of the Social Security Administration and the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services ? The unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare would be resolved, of course, but it would come directly out of the hides of beneficiaries.
No doubt the Administration and congressional leaders will try to convince themselves and everyone else, this provision does not really mean what it says it means, it is there only to fool those good but pesky analysts at the Congressional Budget Office. But at what point will the Obama Administration and congressional negotiators ask themselves, are we so desperate on this one issue, we are willing to put everything else at risk?