The Budget, the Debt Ceiling, and the "Doc Fix" will get a lot of discussion — and possibly even some action — in Congress in the coming weeks. Here's a quick overview of these major issues:
1. The Budget
Congress begins its budget process this week.
Setting the stage for "Reconciliation"?
If both the House and Senate pass a budget resolution, either could include language requiring a second legislative action to "reconcile" the buget and current law. This "Reconciliation" procedure is fast-tracked, and cannot be filibustered in the Senate. It can only be used once per budget cycle and only to tackle things that have a measurable impact on the deficit. Any new spending must be fully offset. Republicans are considering the maneuver to push through changes to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Some have also suggested the Reconciliation process for Tex Reform, though Senate Finance Committee Chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch, has said there is "zero" percent chance of that.
Check out ABC's excellent "5 Things to Know About Congress' Budget Debate" list.
Eliminating the Sequester?
According to a Defense News report quoting Senator John McCain: "McCain: 'A Lot' of Members are taking part in behind the scenes Sequester Talks.
Senate Democrats oppose any move that would exempt defense spending from sequester but leave other programs subject to the limits.
2. The Debt Limit
As covered in the POPVOX Week Ahead, the federal debt limit will be reached on March 16.
Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew sounded the alarm in a recnt letter to Congress. However, the Treasury Department plans to delay the date by which Congress must act until October or November of this year. Last week, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) explained, “We’re … not going to shut down the government or default on the national debt.” (CBS’s Face the Nation, 3/8/15)
3. The "Doc Fix"
The current "Doc Fix" expires on March 31, 2015.
According to reports over the weekend, a bipartisan permanent "doc fix" may be introduced this week by House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
Modern Healthcare reports that the "proposed congressional "doc fix" deal will include a permanent repeal of Medicare's sustainable growth-rate formula and a two-year extension of the Children's Health Insurance Program with a total cost exceeding $200 billion."
Congress has passed a stop-gap "doc fix" 17 times to address a peculiar glitch in the way doctors are paid under Medicare. The "Sustainable Growth Rate" (SGR) formula was established to keep medical costs from rising over a certain amount each year, by cutting payments to doctors in the next year if costs were higher than the SGR. Over the years, Congress never had the political stomach to let those automatic cuts take place for longer than a few days, and simply passed "patch" after patch, rolling the mandated cuts into the next year. This can-kicking created a cycle of unreachable targets and cost estimates that existed only on paper. If the current “patch” were allowed to expire on March 31, Medicare payments to doctors would be reduced by 21 percent.
4. The Patriot Act
On June 1, core provisions of the Patriot Act are due to sunset, including the section authorizing mass surveillance of domestic metadata.
The National Journal notes that a reform bill, the USA Freedom Act, came close to passing last November. It was "two votes short of advancing, as it failed to overcome a Republican-led filibuster flamed by fears that restricting the intelligence community could potentially aid groups like the Islamic State. The defeat came despite support for the bill from the White House, the intelligence community, tech companies and privacy advocates, and even a small cohort of tea-party conservatives, like Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee, crossing the aisle."
