With just the House in session last week, Congress conducted limited business. The most significant action was the House passage of a reconciliation bill that had been carried over from last year. The reconciliation bill (HR 3762) used the fast-track legislative authority to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and defund Planned Parenthood. The legislation
When Congress returns this week it will mark the beginning of a very short congressional calendar. The President is scheduled to deliver his last State of the Union address on January12 which will unofficially begin the new budget debate for FY 2017. The official budget will come a little more than four weeks later in
On Tuesday night Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WS) announced a final budget deal that wraps up appropriations for the rest of fiscal year 2016. The House approved the package in parts with approval of the appropriations, the final piece, coming on Friday. The Senate wasted no time in voting later that day to approve the combined
The new version of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act, with a text that runs over one thousand pages includes a number of long sought after reforms that are intended to help children in foster care and improvements in the McKinney-Vento Education For Homeless Children and Youth
The only thing clear by the end of last week was that Congress needs more time to negotiate a final budget for FY 2016. By Friday both houses of Congress adopted an extension of federal funding from its expiration on December 11 to December 16 of this week. Reports were kept confidential but what has
The draft bill, the Families First Act, will likely come up early in the New Year rather than this month as had been originally hoped. The legislation would allow Title IV-E funding on a limited category of substance abuse, mental health and in-home parent support programs for up to 12-months contingent on a child being
On Thursday, December 3, Capitol Hill was the location for a briefing on Substance Use Treatment: A Core Component of Child Welfare Reform, the briefing entitled the Elephant in the Room discussed the roll that substance abuse is and has been playing in child welfare and foster care in particular. CWLA was one of the
This week the Senate is expected to complete action on the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), more commonly referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act since the last reauthorization in 2002. The House approved the new version S. 1177, the Every Student Succeeds Act, on Tuesday with an overwhelming
The House is expected to re-approve a reconciliation bill that guts the ACA and cuts Planned Parenthood funding this week. The Senate redesigned an earlier House version in an effort to attract enough Republican Senators. The bill passed the Senate on Thursday by a vote of 52 to 47. Two Republican Senators (Kirk R-IL, and
On Thursday, December 3 the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Brookings Institution held a joint meeting to release a new paper and to discuss their joint proposal on Opportunity, Responsibility, and Security: A Consensus Plan for Reducing Poverty and Restoring the American Dream. The two-hour discussion focused on the consensus document that was crafted