Photograph by Marc Rochette/Bloomberg

A Canadian flag flies over the Berens River in Berens River, Manitoba.

Lawmakers are agreed: We should not invade Canada.

Debate over a Senate Democratic proposal to tap “unspent” Afghanistan war funds to cover the cost of halting budget sequestration veered today into the theoretical.

Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois was on the floor, pushing his party’s plan to take advantage of an accounting quirk that forces the Congressional Budget Office to exaggerate how much the government probably will spend on the war in Afghanistan.

By law, the agency is required to assume that discretionary spending, including war funds, will grow each year with inflation even though costs should decline as the war in Afghanistan winds down. Democrats want to take the difference between what the war is projected to cost and what it will actually cost and use that to pay for offsetting automatic budget cuts for the rest of the fiscal year.

“There will be a surplus of money in this fund, some $600 billion, that otherwise had been anticipated to be spent,” Durbin said.

Republican Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania mocked the idea, saying the money was never going to be spent anyway so it can’t be counted as savings. He compared it with deciding not to invade Canada, and then counting as savings the money it would have spent marching on Ottawa.

“Imagine the money we could save if we don’t go to war with Canada,” Toomey said. “With all that savings, let’s go out and spend it.”

Durbin retorted that House Republicans had included Toomey’s “Canadian invasion fund” in one of their previous budgets. “So it was a good idea when (House Budget Chairman) Paul Ryan had to write a budget — it is a bad idea when we’re trying to avoid the pain of sequestration,” he said.

In case anyone missed Toomey’s sarcasm, he was careful to note he isn’t proposing to invade Canada, which came as some comfort to Vermont’s  Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“I live right near there,” Sanders said. “It would be a terrible thing.”

As first reported in Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker.

Original post is Canadian Invasion Not in the Budget by Political Capital.

Photograph by J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

Senate Armed Services Committee members, from left, Sen. John McCain, Sen. Kelly Ayotte, Sen. Deb Fischer, and Sen. Lindsey Graham gather on Capitol Hill in Washington, Feb. 12, 2013, prior to the committee’s hearing on the looming cuts to the defense budget that could be part of the sequestration.

From Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker blog

Arizona Republican John McCain is attempting to torpedo a sequester proposal by his successor as the ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

McCain said in an interview that he is working with New Hampshire’s Kelly Ayotte and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina on a plan to replace the $85 billion in scheduled cuts with reductions in federal workers and other changes.

The plan is aimed at supplanting a competing proposal by Oklahoma’s James Inhofe — who succeeded McCain this year as the top Republican on Armed Services — that would give the Defense Department more power to move money around within its budget so it could live more easily with the coming sequester.

McCain said that would amount to giving up the power of the purse, which the administration could use to undermine the fiscal 2013 defense authorization bill that President Barack Obama signed last month. “In the name of moving funds around, you can make policy decisions which would be directly counter to the National Defense Authorization Act,” he said. “I’m not prepared to give over to the executive branch all the responsibilities of the legislative branch.”

Majority Leader Harry Reid said lawmakers will consider this week two competing sequester proposals — one from each party. Democrats want to replace the cuts with a combination of tax increases on the wealthy and cuts in farm subsidies and defense spending. Republicans haven’t settled on a single proposal.

“What is permitted to come up for a vote, and when, is not yet fully finalized,”said Inhofe spokeswoman Donelle Harder.

Original post is It’s McCain Versus Inhofe Over Budget Cuts by Political Capital.

Photograph by Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

A hull section of a U.S. Navy Littoral Combat Ship (LCS) sits in a paint booth during a facility tour in Marinette, Wisconsin, on Feb. 11, 2013.

From Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker blog

How much is “brutal”?

Lawmakers agree that the automatic spending cuts slated to begin March 1 will be big and painful — President Barack Obama yesterday called them “brutal” — though exactly how big and painful is enough to test anyone’s math skills.

The White House Office of Management and Budget estimated in September that allowing the across-the-board cuts to take effect would result in a 9.4 percent cut in defense discretionary spending, an 8.2 percent cut in the non-defense discretionary budget and a 7.6 percent cut in non-defense mandatory expenditures.

At that point, though, the sequester was expected to be $110 billion. Lawmakers have since reduced the cuts, as part of last month’s fiscal-cliff deal, to $85 billion, drawn equally from defense and non-defense.

Lawmakers further diluted the non-defense cuts when they approved a $30 billion extension of unemployment benefits as part of the cliff deal and, later, when they passed $60 billion in Hurricane Sandy-related aid. Most of that money is now sequester-able, which means that the total amount of non-defense spending subject to the cuts is larger and reductions can be spread across more programs.

While the White House budget office hasn’t finalized its calculations, OMB Controller Daniel Werfel told lawmakers last week that the agency now expects the sequester to cut non-defense programs by “roughly” 5 percent and defense by “roughly” 8 percent — which is less than OMB predicted in September.

Caution: All of those figures are compared with an entire year’s budget. The sequester will be coming five months into fiscal year 2013, so the cuts will feel bigger –  more like 13 percent for defense programs and 9 percent for non-defense programs, Werfel said

And if that’s not complicated enough, if an agency has prepared for the cuts by pinching pennies  — perhaps by taking its time to dole out grants or allowing vacancies to remain unfilled — it will have more money in the bank when the sequester hits. That would make it a little easier for that agency to absorb any cuts. It also makes the predictions of actual impact a little tricky right now.

When will we know some solid numbers? March 1, unless there’s a last minute deal.

Original post is The Math Behind the Sequester by Political Capital.

Photograph by Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

Demonstrators in favor of the Affordable Care Act stand outside the Supreme Court building on June 28, 2012.

From Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker blog

President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that his health-care overhaul is taming costs, though Congress’s top budget advisor isn’t so sure.

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, told lawmakers that he doesn’t know why once-spiraling costs have slowed in recent years.

“We have not attributed the slowdown to any particular factor like the Affordable Care Act,” he told the House Budget Committee, referring to the law enacted in 2010.

It’s a combination of the slow economy — people spend less on care when they feel strapped — and structural changes in the health-care industry that economists don’t yet understand, Elmendorf said.

“The structural part could have a number of possible causes,” he said.  “One could be providers thinking about the current incipient effects of the Affordable Care Act, but they also are driven by pressures from private insurers. I think providers are driven by their own sense that they’re not providing care in as efficient a way as possible.”

In his speech last night, Obama took credit for the slowdown, telling lawmakers: “Already, the Affordable Care Act is helping to slow the growth of health-care costs.”

Cost increases have been slowing for several years; Medicare grew by just 3 percent, or $16 billion, in 2012, the smallestannual gain since 2000. That helped prompt CBO to ratchet back its projections of future costs. It now anticipates that Medicare and Medicaid will cost $200 billion less in 2020 alone than it anticipated just three years ago.

“That’s a topic that we’re giving a lot of thought to,” said Elmendorf. “I think the right way to summarize the consensus is that we don’t know.”

Original post is Obama Says Health Law Cutting Costs; CBO Chief Isn’t So Sure by Political Capital.

Photograph by Alex Wong/Getty Images

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Secretary of State John Kerry during the re-enactment of the swearing-in of Senator William ‘Mo’ Cowan on Feb. 7, 2013 at the Old Senate Chamber of the Capitol.

From Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker blog:

William “Mo” Cowan took John Kerry’s seat. Who gets his desk?

Each senator is assigned a desk on the chamber floor, and Kerry — who represented Massachusetts for 28 years and is now secretary of State — left behind one with special significance: It was Ted Kennedy’s and, before that, John F. Kennedy’s.

Democrats are now sorting out who gets the historic desk as part of the housekeeping that comes with each new Congress. There are almost a dozen new Democratic senators, and lawmakers must decide where everyone sits. While Republicans have finalized their seat arrangements for the next two years, Democrats were delayed by Kerry’s resignation.

Incoming as well as returning lawmakers often have special requests, said Associate Senate Historian Betty Koed. When Ohio Republican Rob Portman was elected in 2010, he sought out the desk used by Robert Taft, the Buckeye State lawmaker, known as “Mr. Republican,” who battled President Harry Truman. Missouri lawmakers often want a desk used by Truman when he was in the  Senate — not a difficult task, said Koed, since the 33rd president was a  desk-hopper, using 10 different ones during his decade-long legislative career.

Many of the desks date from the Capitol’s reconstruction after it was burned down during the War of 1812. The desks are numbered, and starting around 1900, lawmakers have signed their names inside the drawers so the desk’s lineage can be easily traced. Majority Leader Harry Reid’s desk includes Lyndon Johnson’s signature. Desk No. 86 has an inscription by South Carolinian Strom Thurmond, then a Democrat (and later a Republican),  commemorating his record 24-hour filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957.

Over the years, lawmakers have declared a handful of desks off limits. Daniel Webster’s belongs to the senior senator from New Hampshire, by order of a 1974 resolution; while Webster represented Massachusetts in the Senate, he was born in New Hampshire. The Henry Clay desk stays within the Kentucky delegation; it’s currently occupied by Rand Paul because Mitch McConnell is using the Republican leader’s desk. Before he was president of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis used desk No. 60, which lawmakers have agreed since 1995 to reserve for Mississippi’s senior senator.

The Kennedy-Kerry desk doesn’t enjoy the same formal protections, though Democrats probably will  continue reserving desk No. 83 for the Bay State’s senior senator, according to a congressional aide who requested anonymity to discuss internal matters.

That means it will remain with Elizabeth Warren, who has been using it since Kerry resigned. Cowan is now at the desk Warren was assigned.

In his farewell address to the chamber, Kerry reflected on the history behind the desk: “At this desk that once belonged to President Kennedy and to Ted Kennedy, I can’t help but be reminded that even our nation’s greatest leaders and all the rest of us are merely temporary workers,” he said, adding: “I am reminded this chamber is a living museum.”

Original post is Cowan Holds Kerry’s Seat, But Not His Desk by Political Capital.

Photograph by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Senate Judiciary Committee member Sen. Lindsey Graham during a hearing about gun control on Capitol Hill on Jan. 30, 2013.

Some Republican senators say that today’s  Judiciary Committee  hearing on gun control would have been better with some show-and-tell.

South Carolina’s Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Ted Cruz  of Texas fired off a letter to Judiciary Chairman Patrick  Leahy of Vermont complaining about being unable to bring various firearms to the hearing to help their colleagues learn before they legislate, as reported by Bloomberg Government’s Congress Tracker.

In the letter, the senators say they were foiled by what they called onerous gun restrictions. Among them: the District of Columbia’s ban on assault rifles.

“Our goal is simple — to educate fellow senators and members of the public how and why firearms are used by millions of law-abiding Americans in self-defense, hunting and sporting purposes,” they wrote. “We also want to shatter the mistaken belief that guns in the hands of law-abiding citizens are a danger to society.”

They complained the rules are “so impractical as to be unworkable” and urged Leahy to work with law-enforcement officials so that “at future hearings senators can request, and law enforcement will timely provide, various firearms for display and discussion purposes.”

The newly elected senator from Texas had some other thoughts today as well:

We need a serious debate about the Second Amendment. Here are my thoughts from hearing earlier today: youtube.com/watch?v=fiMYIQ…

— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) January 30, 2013

For the record, it’s not impossible to carry assault weapons to an event into the Capitol complex.

California Democrat Dianne Feinstein brought almost a dozen samples to her news conference last week unveiling her proposed ban on the weapons, something she was only able to do with lots of planning. They had to be brought into the Capitol by D.C. police, inspected by the Senate’s Sergeant at Arms as well as the U.S. Capitol Police and also have trigger locks, according to Brian Weiss, a spokesman for the senator.
.

Original post is Gun-Control Hearing: No Show and Tell by Political Capital.

Jack Kingston of Georgia will take over Rehberg’s job as head of the Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Subcommittee, Republicans announced today. Alabama’s Robert Aderholt will follow Kingston as head of the Agriculture Subcommittee. That in turn creates an opening at the helm of the Homeland Security Subcommittee, which John Carter of Texas
will fill.

Florida’s Ander Crenshaw will succeed Emerson as the cardinal of the Financial Services Subcommittee, while Rodney Alexander of Louisiana will replace Crenshaw as head of the Legislative Branch Subcommittee. The other cardinals will all hang on to their current jobs, including Florida’s Bill Young, who received a waiver from the party’s term-limit rules to remain head of the Defense Subcommittee.

“As a nation, we have a tremendous amount of work to do to get our finances in order and our debt in check,” Committee Chairman Hal Rogers said in a statement.  “The 12 members that were chosen to lead our Appropriations subcommittees will shepherd tax dollars in a responsible, frugal, and common-sense way to help address the nation’s financial challenges.”

From Bloomberg Government’s Congresstracker Blog

Original post is Meet Next Year’s New Cardinals by Political Capital.

Photograph by Aaron M. Sprecher/Bloomberg

A U.S. military transportation vehicle at the Port of Beaumont upon return from deployment overseas.

Don’t forget about the other sequester.

While all eyes are on the so-called fiscal cliff, a second round of automatic spending cuts, one that will carve $11 billion out of the Pentagon’s budget, is set to kick in shortly after Congress quits for the year.

That’s because lawmakers spent too much on the Pentagon when they passed a so-called continuing resolution that’s now funding the federal government.

As part of last year’s deal to raise the debt limit, lawmakers agreed to cap defense spending this year at $546 billion. They stipulated that, if Congress exceeded that, the difference would automatically be eliminated. Lawmakers then proceeded to ignore all of that when they passed in September the stopgap funding measure, which provided, at an annualized rate, $557 billion for the Pentagon.

So the law orders $11 billion in defense cuts within 15 days of Congress adjourning for the year. That would come on top of the $55 billion defense cuts already slated to begin taking effect Jan. 2 if lawmakers cannot resolve their impasse over the cliff.

“Why would Congress and the president agree to a CR that provides a level of $557 billion for defense, only to have that decision reversed by a sequester that must be carried out three months later?” asked a memo by the Republican staff of the Senate Budget Committee. “One can only guess that Congress and the president intend to maintain that $557 billion level by turning the sequester off before it can happen, by enacting another law sometime during the lame duck.”

The memo adds: “So budgeteers, add that to the to-do list for the lame duck.”

Original post is Defense Cuts, More Around the Cliff — Add That, `Budgeteers’ by Political Capital.

Lawmakers representing areas hit hard by superstorm Sandy are concerned that if they make changes to the Obama administration’s still-unreleased request for more money for ongoing clean-up efforts once the legislation is sent to Capitol Hill, they’ll violate their much-touted ban on earmarks.

After all, their requests would directly benefit their constituents, and lawmakers previously agreed to a moratorium on such projects. Under Senate rules, the ban includes provisions added “primarily at the request of a senator providing” grants, loans and other expenditures “to a specific state, locality or congressional district other than through” a formula or competitive bidding.

So they’ve come up with a solution: Have the administration cover all the needed bases in its request. Under the rules, it’s not an earmark if the White House asks for it.

Lawmakers have been huddling behind closed doors with administration officials going over their wish lists. New York Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and New Jersey Sens. Robert Menendez and Frank Lautenberg – all Democrats — have spent some late nights with acting Office of Management and Budget Director Jeffrey Zients and Housing Secretary Shaun Donovan detailing their requests.

“The administration has to propose things in far more specificity because we can’t,” said Schumer. “We’re working with them to do it.”

Original post is Earmark Moratorium in Congress Snarls Superstorm Sandy Funding by Political Capital.

Photograph by John Moore/Getty Images

Seniors attend a 'Medicare Monday' seminar at the Holly Creek retirement community in Centennial, Colorado.

It wasn’t that long ago that Republicans pilloried Democrats — on the campaign trail, over the airwaves, in countless news releases — for cutting $716 billion out of Medicare.

“The money you paid for your guaranteed health care is going to a massive new government program that’s not for you,” said one of Mitt Romney’s television ads. “The Romney-Ryan plan protects Medicare benefits for today’s seniors.”

The cuts, used by Democrats to offset the cost of the president’s health-care overhaul, mostly affected reimbursements to hospitals, nursing facilities and others providing services to Medicare beneficiaries.

It’s a history that some Democrats are gleefully recalling now that House Speaker John Boehner wants to raise Medicare’s retirement age, a proposal that could cut benefits by more than $100 billion.

“What were Republicans complaining about? That the president found too much savings in Medicare — $716 billion,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the top Democrat on the Budget committee. “In the space of four weeks, we’ve gone from Republicans complaining the president found too much in Medicare savings to complaining that it’s not enough.”

Boehner spokesman Michael Steel rejected the criticism, saying Republicans were objecting to Democrats cutting Medicare to help finance their “unsustainable new entitlement, Obama-care.”

“The complaint shows a — probably deliberate — misunderstanding,” Steel said.

Original post is Remember that $716 Billion? by Political Capital.