Last week the House of Representatives approved the Defense and Labor-HHS-Education appropriations bill (HR 6157) by a vote of 361 to 61. The President signed the legislation on Friday afternoon. By doing that he extends funding for the departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Education and Labor for the rest of the fiscal year
On Tuesday, September 23, a number of panelists addressed a Capitol Hill crowd on, One Year after Maria: How Children in Puerto Rico are Faring One Year After. The discussion highlighted how Hurricane Maria, one year ago, aggravated what was already a difficult situation for Puerto Rico’s children and families. A panel of experts described
The Senate ended last week’s session early due to the delayed committee vote on the Supreme Court vacancy, but before they departed on Tuesday they gave final approval of a Defense and Labor-HHS-Education appropriations package. The now-Senate approved two-bill package includes a continuing resolution (CR) for the rest of the appropriations that don’t get approved
Last week, HHS released data on the Adoption-Kinship Incentives awards for FY 2018 (based on FY 2017 data) and the total awarded was $64 million. The $64 million is the largest awards ever provided by the fund since it was created as part of the Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA). The second biggest
Negotiations continued last week on the farm bill with the houses divided. Its possible Congress could delay a final deal until a post-election “lame-duck” session. (Lame duck because several legislators will be at the end of their terms due to retirement or defeat and will be consider lame in power due to their inability to
Last week, First Focus released their Children's Budget for 2018. The annual report analyzes and documents historical funding data and spending trends across a wide range of children’s policy areas including child welfare, early childhood, education, health, housing, income support, nutrition, safety and training tracking federal investments in nearly 200 different programs. Some of the
The Senate voted on their opioids legislation on Tuesday, September 18 and passed it by a vote of 99 to 1 (Senator Mike Lee (R-UT)-no). Immediately they began negotiations on the Opioid Crisis Response Act of 2018, with their House counterparts. The hope is that they can get a quick deal and pass it before
Cutting their week short due to the hurricane, the Senate gave final approval to a Military Construction and Veterans -Energy and Water--Legislative Branch FY 19 spending package sending it back to the House for a final approval. The bill goes to the White House for signature and marks the first FY 2019 bills enacted before
Congressman Danny Davis (D-IL) is promoting one-time funding that can assist social workers seeking education loan forgiveness. The temporary funding acts as a patch for some who qualify for loan forgiveness under a ten-year plan that covers some workers (including social workers working within child welfare) if they have paid on their loans over the
Last Monday and Thursday the House Ways and Means Committee acted on a second package of tax cuts. The bills were introduced on Tuesday and passed in Committee on Thursday. Committee Chairman, Congressman Kevin Brady (R-TX) announced the unveiling of “Tax Reform 2.0.” The package includes three bills: H.R. 6760, H.R. 6757 and H.R. 6756.