Some Democrats say that if Congress returns for a lame-duck session after the November elections, they feel they have the votes to defeat the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA).

Supporters of CAFTA appear to believe that with the recent spate of pro-trade votes involving South Africa, Morocco and Australia, CAFTA will pass.

But opponents of CAFTA say that there aren't enough trade-friendly Democratic votes to offset the Republicans who oppose the bill because of its potential impact on citrus, sugar and textile industries in their states.

Senate GOP leadership appears to have settled on a strategy for moving the 12 remaining spending bills for fiscal 2005 before the November election. If the plan is successful, it may well eliminate the need for a post-election "lame duck" session. Democrats have already indicated their desire to slow down this rush to complete the appropriations measures.

The leadership strategy revolves around using the Homeland Security Appropriation bill as a vehicle for an omnibus spending measure that would include all the other appropriations bills, except Defense, which has already been signed into law. The disciplinary tool most valuable to the leadership will be the little-noticed provision in the Defense Appropriation bill that sets in statute spending caps for fiscal 2005. This provision has the same effect as passage of a Budget Resolution, i.e. it allows the leadership to push aside amendments that would cause the total spending in the bill to exceed the caps. In essence, this means that 50 votes are all that will be required to stop amendments. In the absence of this provision, 60 votes would have been needed.

Carrying out this strategy will require the Senate Appropriations Committee to complete mark-up on nine appropriations bills in September. The plan would then be to attach the committee reports to the House-passed Homeland Security bill and bring that to the floor of the Senate. If the Senate passes that omnibus bill, a conference with the House would be in order.

If leaders stick with this plan, the Appropriations Committee will hit the ground running on September 7 when Congress returns. Peyser Associates will be running right alongside.

With heavy pressure on Congress to take swift action on the September 11 commission’s proposals, many legislators have been called back to Washington during the summer recess for committee hearings and meetings.

Defense Department (DoD) officials have returned to Washington in order to defend the Pentagon’s priorities in order to retain control of intelligence operations. The department currently controls more than 80% of the estimated $40 billion annual intelligence budget. On Tuesday and Wednesday senior military leaders will appear before a panel of the House Armed Services Committee. The DoD’s supporters believe the commission’s proposals should be slowly and thoroughly scrutinized, rather than rapidly implemented. Although the creation of a national intelligence director (NID) has already been endorsed by the Bush administration, debate as to whether the NID would gain full control over the various intelligence agencies budgets or merely "input" into the budget process, has yet to conclude. The 9/11 commission strongly advised that the NID would retain full control, but as this would shift power away from the Pentagon, many key players remain opposed to such a move. In the past the Pentagon has fought successfully to deny the current Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) budgetary and personnel control over the various agencies the DCI heads.

70 to 100 House Democrats are also expected to return to Washington for a mid-recess caucus meeting on Tuesday. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California hopes to use this meeting to pressure Republicans to act on the commission findings and plan a response to the commission’s challenge. The commission’s recommendations on restructuring intelligence oversight will be difficult to implement because they require changing jurisdictional lines, which will incite turf battles in Congress. Currently, several different congressional panels have control over various security/intelligence groups within the executive branch. Streamlining the review process to one or two panels would enable Congress to exercise both authorizing and appropriating abilities.

The Bush administration released the current fiscal year deficit project July 30, saying the government would run $445 billion into the red. The total figure, a new record, is 19% higher than last years $374 billion deficit.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) had projected earlier this year that the budget deficit would climb to $521 billion dollars, and so marked the eventual result as a improvement. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) also predicted a larger deficit in January, but later revised its figure downward.