Washington
Update
A heavy
schedule awaits the House and Senate this week as they
attempt to wrap up important business prior to the
Memorial Day recess (scheduled for May
28th-June 1st).
Budget
Resolution Passes Both Chambers
Last Thursday, both
the House and Senate approved a $2.9 billion
budget resolution for FY 2008. The plan is
designed to balance the federal budget within five
years. It
would require offsets for any new tax cuts or increases
in entitlement spending. It calls
for $21 billion more in domestic discretionary spending
than the President's request.
The House
was able to use a procedural maneuver in its vote on the
resolution (214-209) to increase the statutory
debt ceiling by $850 billion. In the Senate,
which passed the resolution on a vote of 52-40, a
separate vote will be required to raise the debt
ceiling.
The budget resolution does not require the
President's signature.
With
passage of the resolution, work on the twelve
discretionary spending bills will commence with the
consideration of appropriations for homeland
security.
FY
2007 Defense Supplemental Appropriations Still
Unresolved
On Friday,
White House and congressional negotiators failed to
reach agreement on the defense supplemental bill. Although
the Democratic leadership offered to eliminate domestic
spending provisions from the bill vetoed by the
President earlier in May, the Administration would not
agree to timelines regarding troop withdrawal,
benchmarks for progress, and other provisions regarding
military operations in Iraq.
The Senate
has appointed its conferees for the bill; the House is
expected to do so early this week.
Immigration
Bill Goes to Senate Floor this Week
The Senate
is expected to engage in lively debate this week over a
massive immigration reform bill. The bill, as
currently constructed, would establish a complex
system for issuance of approximately 1 million permanent
visas per year based on a number of factors, including
date of application; the applicants' job skills,
education, and family relationships to legal residents;
and, whether and when the applicant entered the
U.S.
One of the
more controversial provisions would allow approximately
12 million illegal immigrants already in the U.S. to
receive a "work authorization" immediately upon
enactment, and eventually a new provisional "Z" visa
with a path to citizenship involving a $5,000 fine and a
requirement to return to their home country before
applying for U.S. citizenship.
The bill
would establish a guest worker program allowing
two-years-at-a-time stays in the U.S. for low-skilled
workers during which the workers would earn points
toward a green card. Further,
it would increase the annual cap on "H-1B" visas for
high-skilled workers from 65,000 to 115,000 and perhaps
later to 180,000, a figure still considered way too low
by the high-tech industry.
