The House Appropriations Committee acted on a Labor Department-Health and Human Services-Education Department bill last Wednesday. For the most part, the smaller child welfare programs that are dependent on the annual appropriations were flat funded. CAPTA state grants, CAPTA discretionary grants, Child Welfare Services, Promoting Safe and Stable Families (PSSF), we're all funded at last
The Dream Act of 2017 has been introduced in the Senate by Senator Richard Durbin (D-IL) and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Called the United We Dream Act, it would offer a route to permanent legal status for millions of undocumented immigrant youth. The bill comes as ten Attorneys General sent a letter to Donald Trump
The second of the President’s Commission on Combating Drug Addiction and Opioid Crisis will be held via teleconference on Monday, July 31, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. EST. The Commission, Chaired by Governor Chris Christie (R-NJ) is behind schedule. It met for the first time on Friday, June 16. The Commission was established to develop interim
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) will delay a critical key procedural vote this week after Senator John McCain (R-AZ) announced he would be absent due to a medical procedure. That will not prevent McConnell from trying to get the necessary votes but will likely delay it at least a week. Once the Senate approves
On Thursday, July 13, the House Subcommittee on Labor-Health and Human Services-Education approved an appropriations bill that would cut FY 2017 funding by an additional $5 billion. While it provides an increase of $1.1 billion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), rejecting the President’s request of severe cuts, it does little else for human
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
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 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
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