Congress is slated to return to the Capitol on January 20. If the House and Senate leaders' plans hold together, this election year session will be a short one, with votes scheduled for only about 90 days in the entire session. The current plan appears to be to have the major substantive business of the session wrapped-up by the convening of the Democratic National Convention in late July. This would reserve September -- slated to be the final month of the session -- to complete work on the annual appropriations bills.

Given the shortness of the time available, leaders want to begin early with substantive action. Among the items on which they will seek action in the early part of the year are:

Energy Legislation

One more attempt will be made to round-up votes in the Senate for the conference report on the energy package which came up short in 2003.

TEA-21 Reauthorization

Neither the House nor the Senate knows yet how to pay for the proposals pending in their respective bodies, but leaders continue to press for floor consideration in February/March.

TANF Reauthorization

The issue of the number of required hours of work-related activity continues to be a sticking point to gaining sufficient votes in the Senate for extending TANF. Further extensions are possible.

Job Training

Senate leaders continue to look for ways to advance the concept of consolidating certain job training programs. Democrats are resisting.

Reconciliation

The tax vehicle for the year is expected to be a reconciliation measure designed to helpd reach budget targets on the revenue side. Reconciliation bills do not need 60 votes to pass in the Senate, so look for this to be a major piling-on opportunity for a number of tax-related issues. For example, the internet tax issue may well be resolved on this legislation.

This is a modest agenda in keeping with the modest amount of time available. As the session goes on, items on this list will be dropped for lack of support and others will certainly arise. More minor issues will float to the surface as time allows. Keep watching this space for frequent updates.

A month before the release of President Bush's fiscal 2005 budget, some outlines of the proposal are beginning to emerge through leaks reported in the media. On the spending side, it appears the president will seek cuts in housing, job training and veterans' health benefits, will seek to slow the growth in health research and will propose significant increases for education programs for the disabled and low income. The budget is also expected to include new tax cut proposals to encourage individual saving and to assist those without health insurance to purchase it.

Faced wih the prospect of an election-year budget with record deficit levels, the Bush Administration does not appear to be moving towards significant reduction in the deficit. Domestic discretionary spending (i.e. excluding defense, homeland security and entitlements) would increase by 3% above the fiscal 2004 levels, according to reports. This is about the same level of increase in fiscal 2004 as compared with 2003. While details on other parts of the budget have yet to emerge, it is safe to assume the upward spending trends in defense, homeland security and entitlement spending will continue. On the revenue side, the end of the three-year slide in Federal revenues (the first such dip since the 1920's) is almost certain to end. Whether revenue increases will be enough to offset the spending increases contemplated in this budget remains to be seen. The Congressional Budget Office, predicting an increase in the deficit to a record $ 450 Billion before new policies are considered, apparently doesn't think so.

The two big winners in the budget plan appear to be the IDEA program ("special ed") and the Title I education program targeted at low income students. Each program would receive a boost of about $ 1 billion, which works out to a 15% increase for IDEA and an 8% bump for Title I.

The proposal in the housing area is focused on holding the line on spending by more closely reviewing the income levels of applicants for vouchers and by limiting the number of vouchers that can be issued. On job training, it appears that cutting spending while consolidating programs will be the approach.

More details on the Bush budget plan will emerge in the weeks ahead. We will continue reporting on them and will, of course, supply a detailed report of the budget plan when it emerges officials on February 2.