In a much awaited decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled this morning that the admissions practices at both Harvard University and the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill are unconstitutional because of how race is in their decisions.
The entirety of the ruling is available .听
Examples of initial analyses of the ruling are available , , and .
Both the House and Senate are set to have full committee mark ups for the 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) this week. HASC Chairman Mike Rogers (R-AL) expressed his praise for the bipartisan work of the seven subcommittees so far, however there are still many partisan issues to be addressed including disagreements related to the Space Command Headquarters and abortion polices in the military. The House鈥檚 spending bill includes about $826 billion for new discretionary funding, about $285 billion more than President Biden鈥檚 request. Democrats have signaled their disagreement with the bill by calling out the $1.1 billion in cuts to salaries for civilian personnel, the $714 million cut to climate change programs and $100 million cut to DEI efforts that are included in the House bill. Another key part of the House bill includes a $9 billion investment in the Indo-Pacific region focused on deterring Chinese aggression.
The Senate full committee will meet for what could be a three-day full committee markup of the 2024 NDAA. Read more about .
Now that the debt ceiling package was passed, Congress is working on the appropriation bills. Today, the House Appropriations Committee is expected to approve 302(b) funding allocations for all 12 spending measures which sets the top line limit for all discretionary spending under each bill. The committee also听听the Energy-Water bill (full text available听; summary available听) and the Defense bill (full text available听; summary available听). Yesterday, the committee 听the FY24听 on a party-line vote.
Although the debt ceiling negotiations ended in a “deal”, there is still deep divides over discretionary spending between Democrats and Republicans. House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-TX) internally released 302(b) funding allocations on Monday and 颁蚕听 that the allocations 鈥渢otal $1.471 trillion, or $119 billion less than the spending caps outlined in the debt ceiling package negotiated by McCarthy and President Joe Biden and $131 billion less than the current fiscal year.鈥� House Democrats will continue to fight against these spending cuts. Our office will continue to monitor progress as the appropriations process continues.
Last week, the debt ceiling bill was passed by both the House and the Senate and signed by President Biden on Saturday lifting the debt ceiling until January 2025, narrowly missing the deadline for default on the country鈥檚 debt. The agreement caps non-defense spending at FY23 levels and allows for only a 1% increase in FY2025. Now that the caps have been set, appropriators will determine the specific levels of funding for agencies and programs. As always, we will track progress on our appropriations tracker found . 听
After turning back approximately a dozen amendments during the floor debate last night, the Senate adopted by a 63 to 36 vote the , clearing it for the President’s signature later today.听 The Treasury Department had been warning that the nation would lose its ability to pay all of its bills next Monday.听 The House cleared the bill earlier this week.听听
While the fight over the debt limit has become much more partisan and political recently, this year’s fight represents the closest the nation has come to actually defaulting on its debts.