Federal Budget News - Shutdown averted

Con­gress has aver­ted a mid­night shut­down, as the House on Wed­nes­day af­ter­noon fol­lowed the Sen­ate’s ex­ample by eas­ily passing a tem­por­ary spend­ing bill fund­ing the gov­ern­ment through Decem­ber 11.

The stop­gap meas­ure passed the Sen­ate 78 to 20 and then cleared the House on a 277-151 vote, des­pite the op­pos­i­tion of dozens of con­ser­vat­ives with ob­jec­tions to any pack­age that con­tin­ues to fund Planned Par­ent­hood. Videos re­leased by a pro-life group charge that the or­gan­iz­a­tion is il­leg­ally selling fetal tis­sue for a profit; the or­gan­iz­a­tion vig­or­ously denies the al­leg­a­tions.

Neither Demo­crats nor Re­pub­lic­ans were thrilled about the shut­down show­down, and both sides poin­ted fin­gers at the oth­er for bring­ing the coun­try to the brink. But there is some hope that the two sides can come to an agree­ment in the next few months for a longer budget deal clear­ing the decks for the next pres­id­ent.

Sen­ate Ma­jor­ity Lead­er Mitch Mc­Con­nell said Tues­day that he spoke with Pres­id­ent Obama and House Speak­er John Boehner last week about “get­ting star­ted” with ne­go­ti­ations for a two-year budget so the Re­pub­lic­an-led Con­gress can have a reg­u­lar ap­pro­pri­ations pro­cess next year. Sen­ate Demo­crats have blocked ap­pro­pri­ations bills this year over op­pos­i­tion that the spend­ing levels laid out in 2011 are too low, es­pe­cially for do­mest­ic pro­grams. “We are in­ev­it­ably go­ing to end up in a ne­go­ti­ation that will crack the Budget Con­trol Act once again,” said Mc­Con­nell a few weeks ago.

Mem­bers are already turn­ing their eyes to Decem­ber when the Sen­ate hopes to pass ap­pro­pri­ations bills based on a spend­ing deal with the White House. But House con­ser­vat­ives, em­boldened by Boehner’s resig­na­tion, may be even more dif­fi­cult to cor­ral on a deal that will al­most cer­tainly raise spend­ing levels above se­quest­ra­tion caps for both de­fense and nondefense spend­ing.

This could all be complicated with the unexpected announcement by Speaker John Boehner that he will retire at the end of December.  Moving forward, the far right conservatives holding out on some votes Boehner wanted to advance could have a very interesting impact on the process to fund the government by December 11^th.  Currently, Majority Leader Cong Kevin McCarthy is expected to be elected to replace Boehner.  There are no other strong contenders for the role that have surfaced.   

Download a report of the 114th Congress Legislation Tracking

US Debt Limit/Default

In addition to the fiscal year budget impasse, the transportation/hwy funding bill stalled, Congress will need to address the debt limit by Nov. 5 or risk a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt. The deadline is the first the Obama administration has set for raising the $18.1 trillion debt limit, and comes in somewhat earlier than what most experts had predicted.

The timeline gives lawmakers just a few weeks to hammer out some sort of agreement, and sets the stage for what could be a hectic scramble, particularly in the House as Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) is looking to accomplish as much as possible before resigning at the end of October.

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said the latest figures coming into his department show that the government will have less than $30 billion on hand “on or around” Nov. 5. He added that that amount would be “far short” of what is needed on certain days, when government bills can total as much as $60 billion.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted back in March the spending limit could be reached by end of November or December.  This new date has tossed another wrench into the many contentious discussions on Capitol Hill.

The administration has repeatedly said it will not negotiate raising the debt limit, but congressional Republicans in the past have pressed for spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Prior to the deadline, there had been talk of tying the debt limit to budget talks. But the month-long gap between the debt-limit deadline and expiration of government funding complicates matters.

The Treasury Department will continue to update Congress on the federal spending status as it noted due to a lower than expected influx of tax revenue, that date of cash running out for US paying debts could hit even before November 5^th.

Perkins Loan Program – Its Future…..

As of Wednesday night, no new loans will be made through the Perkins Loan Program.  The program was set to expire on September 30^th.  On Monday the House passed a bill to extend it for an additional year so that it could be wrapped into the Higher Education Reauthorization Act.   Senator Alexander, Chair of the Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, will be in the driver’s seat when it comes to the Reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act later this fall and into next year.  During a strong effort to have the House Bill extending the program for one year by several Senators led by Senator Duckworth, Senator Alexander blocked the bill from advancing in the Senate.  Alexander has made it clear that he intends to simplify all forms of financial aid in this bill as well as the FAFSA form.   

The Perkins Loan allowed colleges to invest their own money for students eligible for the program and bear some of the risk of default.  This program could have been a political win for those pushing to have institutions more involved in the federal loan process. In the program, institutions contribute 33 cents on each dollar Congress provides to the program.  Congress hasn’t funded the program with new money in the last ten years resulting in a very small pot of available aid.  Alexander and those supporting the elimination of the program felt that the $5 billion needed to fund the program for the next 10 years was better spent in creating an expanded Pell Grant program.  This program has about 1500 schools, mostly public, enrolled.  Some institutions are scrambling to fill the void of what their first year students currently in the program will not have access to in future years.  

In the bill with the Perkins Loan Reauthorization, was the authorization of the Advisory Committee on Financial Assistance.  This group was formed by Congress to advise the Department and Congress on Student Financial Aid Issues.  This committee, as of Wednesday night, lost its Congressional Authorization and funding.  They were seen as a bi partisan group that advised on impact of policy changes, etc to financial aid.  There is still a possibility they could be resurrected within the Higher Education Reauthorization bill, but that is unlikely at this point.  

HIGHER EDUCATION REAUTHORIZATION UPDATE

As Congress moves through many complex budgeting issues this fall, both the House and Senate Education Committees continue to hold hearings on the topics that will most likely be addressed in the bill in the months ahead.  The Committees have held hearings on Campus Sexual Assault and the approaches institutions are taking to deal with growing concerns and supporting the student communities.

The House Hearing had a panel of witnesses very close to our community; Dana Scaduto, general counsel at Dickinson College (PA); Penny Rue, vice president at Wake Forest University (NC); Joseph Cohn, director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education; and Lisa M. Maatz, vice president at the American Association of University Women.

The panelists all did an excellent job of describing the challenges faced on campuses as well as the programs and initiatives in place to support students and most of all educate them on the issues and how they can support each other.  Ms. Scaduto stated it clearly of which the entire panel agreed in that they would like to be able and needed to resources to spend more time on education of the issues and not mired down in sorting out policies and administration of those sometimes conflicting federal policies.  The panel all agreed as well that policies need to be established that would respect the differences between institutions’ structure and protocol, the policies created assuming a one size fits all approach are unrealistic and force administrators to spend more time on adherence to such as opposed to educating and supporting their campus communities.

The Senate Hearing included a panel with Janet Napolitano, President of the University of California (UC) system and the four Senate co-sponsors of the Campus Accountability and Safety Act.  Napolitano started the hearing by testifying their efforts of educating over 400,000 students and faculty in their system this fall on reporting and prevent sexual assaults.The hearing was chaired by Sen. Collins (R-ME) and she began the hearing with an account of her own in house survey of interns and what they felt should be done about the issue.  She shared that all the interns, male and female, stated they felt more education was needed and not necessarily more policies.  Senator Warren (D-MA) followed up her remarks with a request that the panelists let the committee know what they need or can do to assist institutions in their efforts to educate their campus communities.  Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and chair of the Senate HELP committee asked for the same input, as well as help with institutions feedback on what can be done to make the laws as they exist more clear.  He also left the panel with three points they committee will be working with as they move further into Reauthorization:

• How can the Clery Act and other regulations in this area be more clear and work better?
• What can be done to help campuses better coordinate with law enforcement agencies?
• What can be done to ensure that colleges establish procedures on sexual assault that guarantee due process for both parties?

AAU’s Campus Sexual Assault Survey Results

As reported by AASCU

AAU has released its much-anticipated findings from a survey conducted last year of more than 150,000 students at 27 universities on campus sexual assault and sexual misconduct. One of the largest surveys of its kind, it was designed to assess the incidence, prevalence, and characteristics of incidents as well as the overall campus climate with regards to perception of risk, knowledge of resources available, and perceived reactions to an incident report. Overall, 23.1 percent of female undergraduate students reported experiencing nonconsensual sexual contact by physical force, threats of physical force, or incapacitation since they enrolled, which is in line with the popular 1-in-5 statistic. For transgender, queer, and other gender-nonconforming students, this number was 39.1 percent. Rates of reporting incidents ranged from 5 to 28 percent, depending on the type of behavior. Common reasons for not reporting included that the misconduct was not considered "serious enough," from embarrassment or shame, or that they did not think anything would be done.

The authors of the findings acknowledged a low response rate (of 19.3 percent) and that the statistics varied from campus to campus. AAU only released aggregate data, however, leaving the choice to release college-specific findings up to the institutions; nearly all have released their individual reports to the public.
http://www.aau.edu/Climate-Survey.aspx?id=16525

NCAA and Antitrust Laws

A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit on Wednesday upheld the main thrust of a judge’s landmark decision last year declaring that NCAA rules violate federal antitrust law by restricting players’ ability to trade on their images. The decision also struck down part of last year’s ruling, by Judge Claudia Wilken of the U.S. District Court in Oakland, Calif., which would have allowed football and men’s basketball players to be paid deferred compensation of up to $5,000 per year.

“The NCAA is not above the antitrust laws, and courts cannot and must not shy away from requiring the NCAA to play by the Sherman [Antitrust] Act's rules,” the three-judge panel wrote in its decision. “In this case, the NCAA's rules have been more restrictive than necessary to maintain its tradition of amateurism in support of the college sports market. The Rule of Reason requires that the NCAA permit its schools to provide up to the cost of attendance to their student athletes. It does not require more.”

In January, using a new governance structure that granted them greater autonomy to create their own rules, the five wealthiest athletic conferences passed a measure allowing them to provide scholarships covering the full cost of tuition.
Inside Higher Ed