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Congress Continues to Wrestle With Issues of Health Care, Job Creation and Taxation
The House and Senate are trying to work out widely varying approaches to resolving the health care issue. Last week's meeting with the President provided some strong hints from congressional leaders that budget reconciliation might be used to approve a measure without having to overcome a Senate filibuster. Under reconciliation, the support of a simple majority in the Senate would be all that is required to agree with the House on a proposal to send to the President. That, however, would come with some limitations, as legislation approved via this process cannot affect the federal budget deficit for more than ten years into the future. That is the reason tax cuts approved in 2001 are expiring — reconciliation was used to move that package of legislation.
Both the House and Senate have also approved bills aimed at job creation, though again the proposals are far apart in approach and cost.
A bill scheduled in the Senate this week to extend a number of expiring tax reductions dating to 2001 is being delayed because of questions about how to reconcile this with a resurgence of the "pay as you go" policy.
One matter that is part of many of the job creation and taxation proposals is funding for federal highway programs. The federal efforts are day-to-day on funding. The recently approved Senate jobs bill would provide for a $20 billion infusion of funding and a cancellation of funding rescissions, but all of this depends on the House and Senate reaching agreement on many issues.
For more information about public policy issues issues, contact Dacia Kruse, director of public policy and state issues, (402) 978-7938, or Tim Stuart, manager of transportation development and policy research, (402) 474-4960.