The biggest event last week was not the drama around a final FY 2018 budget bill but came on Saturday when several hundred thousand came to Washington to listen to a series of young people-children speak of the horrors of gun violence in the United States. Except for some limited celebrity entertainment in support of
In the end a fix for DACA was never really considered. Despite the President’s comments on Friday it appears that a DACA fix was never a serious point of negotiation. As one of the three key factions in any budget negotiation, the President could have drawn a line in the sand and demanded a fix.
There were several other funding increases and efforts included in the final bill. They did agree to strip out a Congressman Jay Dickey (R-AR) from 1996 which had a chilling effect on CDC research on gun violence. Although the original language did not specifically ban CDC research in this area, at the time in 1996
There are five legislative days left before a government shutdown. Congress headed into the weekend with a lack of clarity on where Congress is going on the final appropriation for FY 2018. It is looking more and more likely that this appropriation will be the proverbial “last train leaving the station.” As a result many
The Senate Finance Committee is holding a confirmation hearing on Tuesday on the nomination of Lynn A. Johnson to be the next Assistant Secretary for Family Support (formerly Administration on Children and Families). As the Senate was preparing to move forward on the Assistant Secretary position, the Administration was nominating Elizabeth Darling to be the
On March 15, HHS published in the Federal Register two notices in regard to a delay in the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting Systems (AFCARS). In the first notice, the Children’s Bureau is proposing to delay the AFCARS implementation rule (finalized in 2016) by two years. Comments for this proposed delay are due
Federal funding for FY 2018 runs out on March 23 when the current CR expires. This current CR was designed only to provide Congress enough time to write and pass an omnibus appropriations bill wrapping all 12 bills into one package. But the appropriations part of the February 9 budget deal may not happen in
he Office of Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) has released research on the relationship between increased substance abuse (especially opioids) and the increasing foster care numbers. The ASPE study, Substance Use, the Opioid Epidemic, and the Child Welfare System: Key Findings from a Mixed Methods Study takes a much deeper look at the
The talk in Washington last week was dominated by the latest school shootings in Parkland, Florida. At the start of the week it seemed clear that the Congress would do little if anything, but those plans seemed to get at least a partial jolt by the President’s cabinet room meeting on Wednesday, February 28, the
The appropriations discussions continued behind closed door last week with progress reportly limited. Although the February 9, budget agreement raised the caps on “non-defense” spending by approximately $60 billion (or more like $50 billion when matched against what was permitted in 2017), that non-defense includes the State Department, military construction and some veterans programs but