House Budget Committee Chair Congresswoman Dianne Black (R-TN) continued to struggle with the most conservative members of her House Caucus over the level of mandatory and entitlement cuts. There seems to be agreement over discretionary (annually appropriated) spending. Nondefense programs would be cut to $511 billion. (Under the existing Budget Control Act—BCA, the spending level
When and if Congress moves forward on a tax package late this year or next year one of the more vulnerable tax provisions is the Adoption Tax Credit. CWLA has been a longtime supporter of this tax credit which has taken on various forms and sizes over the past two decades. At times, it has
Last week the Home Visiting Coalition focused on building grassroots support for the Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV). With the authorization expiring on September 30 and no action yet, the National Home Visiting Coalition has been working to step up action on MIECHV. MIECHV still enjoys strong, bipartisan support, on and off the
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) pulled the Better Care Reconciliation Act from a vote during the Republican weekly luncheon last Tuesday, June 27 concerned that the bill would go down to defeat. Once that happened he intensified rounds of negotiations looking at nearly $200 billion in projected savings to try and buy enough support
The debate over health care has once again raised the specter of the role of the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) with Members of Congress and the President assaulting the office because they don't like their non-partisan projections that are not favorable to their bill. It's an old Washington parlor game but if you looked closely,
The House Budget Committee (and the Senate) is well behind schedule since resolutions are usually completed in April but the battle lines seem to have become bigger and harder over the past week. A little more than a week to ten days ago the outlines of a House Budget Committee deal seemed clear. What had
The Maternal Infant Early Childhood Home Visiting (MIECHV) program is currently set to expire on September 30, 2017. The Home Visiting Coalition is asking for advocates to help build grassroots support. Last week, the coalition was informed that the MIECHV Reauthorization Bill had not been moved to markup for a committee vote this week because
When and if Congress moves forward on a tax package late this year or next year one of the more vulnerable tax provisions is the Adoption Tax Credit. CWLA has been a longtime supporter of this tax credit which has taken on various forms and sizes over the past two decades. At times, it has
Senate Majority Leader, Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) plans to have a final vote on the Senate majority health bill by the end of this week. The Senate bill, released on Thursday morning, modifies the House bill but for the most part sticks to the same core elements: eliminates the individual mandates, weakens requirements that all
Last Tuesday, June 20, the House of Representatives adopted a series of bipartisan child welfare bills. The five bills were all taken from last year’s Families First legislation that had been adopted by the House last summer. Taken together the bills would speed up placements across state lines, improve regional partnership substance use treatment grants
