The House and Senate voted last night to extend a number of tax cut provisions that were due to expire, at a cost of $145.9 billion.

Included in the package are a number of tax breaks for individuals, including an extension of the current child tax credit, 10% income tax bracket, exemption from the alternative minimum tax and the current married couple deduction. Extensions of tax cuts for business and investors were also included, totaling $13 billion.

Democrats fought unsuccessfully to have revenue-raising offsets included in the package. Republicans argued that no offsets were needed, hoping to build support for the still-stalled corporate tax bill. The debate over whether to raise revenue to pay for tax cuts is sure to reignite when that measure is brought to the floor.

A program which provides grants to states to create high-risk health insurance pools is expected to be extended today in the Senate Health, Education, Labor & Pensions Committee. Both parties agree the bill (S 2283) would be amended to use at least some of the funds to provide benefits to consumers in addition to the insurance program.

Two years ago the program was created in the Trade Adjustment Assistance Reform Act. It is funded and operated by states, who use the system to help people who cannot obtain health insurance through regular channels. Currently, the grants will expire at the end of fiscal 2004, September 30.

We also now have a copy of the Senate Appropriation Committee's Labor/Health and Human Services/Education appropriations report.

The measure would cost $489.8 billion and provide $142.3 billion in discretionary spending. It was passed by a vote of 29-0 and includes a measure targeting new overtime pay rules, much like one that passed in the House version last week. The White House has threatened to veto the bill if a similar amendment emerges from conference.

This week the Appropriations Subcommittee on Commerce/State/Justice marked up its Fiscal Year 2005 bill making appropriations for the Department of Justice. Below you will find an appropriations chart for state and local law enforcement programs.

This chart was made available by the National Criminal Justice Association and is in Microsoft Word format.

The House of Representatives is currently debating the FY 2005 Transportation and Treasury Appropriations bill (H.R. 5025), and yesterday’s floor debate was marred by a “turf battle” between the authorizers and appropriators. With only seven of the 46 DOT line items currently authorized due to the inability of conferees to finalize the reauthorization of TEA 21 (H.R. 3550), appropriators accused the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee of not having done their job to get a comprehensive highway and transit reauthorization measure completed. Major provisions of the FY 2005 appropriations bill were struck due to a “point of order” raised by Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Don Young (R-Alaska) that the appropriations committee is providing appropriations for unauthorized programs. Provisions that were struck on the House floor included the $34.6 billion for the federal highway program, $7.3 billion for transit programs, including $1.1 billion for the New Starts program and fixed guideways, $900 million for Amtrak, and $225 million for highway traffic safety grants. The bill will most likely move to conference without funding for most DOT programs. Aviation programs were largely unscathed because their authorization was completed in 2003.

House appropriators stated that they will not to allow the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to "pick and choose" which DOT-related provisions to strike because it constitutes legislating on an appropriations bill or appropriating without an authorization. They plan to add funding for these key programs when the bill goes to Conference.

Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee voted 29-0 to approve their version of the yet-to-be-numbered Transportation and Treasury Appropriations bill that provides $34.9 billion for highway programs, $7.75 billion for transit, approximately $14 billion for aviation, and $1.217 billion for Amtrak.

The Committee approved a number of “minor” changes included in a bipartisan managers' amendment. The manager’s amendment has no yet been made public.
At yesterday’s mark up, Committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said he hopes to get all spending bills, including the $90.6 billion FY 2005 Transportation and Treasury bill to the floor with short time agreements for consideration.

It appears that Homeland Security Chairman Christopher Cox and ranking member Jim Turner who have been working to put together a bipartisan homeland security authority bill will have their efforts over taken by the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.

Public clamoring for the action on the recommendations by the 9/11 commission likely postpones work on the authorization bill until next year. It also raises real questions about whether the House Homeland Security Committee will be successful in its efforts to become a permanent committee.

Today, the Bush administration is expected to send to the Hill a smaller than anticipated request for about $2.5 billion in additional FY04 disaster for Florida. This follows last week's congressional approval of a $2 billion down payment. This was before the full costs of Hurricanes Charley, Frances and the looming Ivan were tabulated. The new request is expected to much slower than last week's request as this week is cut short by the Rosh Hashana as well as congressional leaders will attempt to keep the supplemental "clean" without any additions or amendments.

The administration is expected to break the disaster request into components - such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Agriculture Department, NASA and other entities.