In the House, courtesy of the Office of the Democratic Whip:
TOMORROW’S OUTLOOK On Tuesday, the House will meet at 10:00 a.m. for Morning Hour debate and 12:00 p.m. for legislative business.
Last votes are expected between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m.
“One Minutes” (15 per side) Begin Consideration of H.R. 1 - Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act, 2011 (Rep. Rogers (KY) – Appropriations) (1 hour of general debate) (Subject to a Rule)
In the Senate, courtesy of the Office of the Majority Leader:
Convenes: 10:00am Morning business until 11am with Senators permitted to speak for up to 10 minutes each therein, with the time equally divided and controlled between the two leaders or their designees.
At 11am, the Senate will resume consideration of S.223, FAA Authorization bill.
At 11:40am, the Senate will proceed to the consideration of the Nelson (NE) amendment #58 (criminal penalty for distribution of body scan images) and a Nelson (NE) 2nd degree amendment #85 will be agreed to. There will then be a roll call vote in relation to the Nelson (NE) amendment #58, as amended (60-vote threshold).
The Senate will recess from 12:30pm until 2:15pm to allow for the weekly caucus luncheons.
At 2:15pm, there will be 10 minutes of debate equally divided and controlled between Senators Rockefeller and Wicker prior to a roll call vote in relation to the Wicker amendment #14, as modified (TSA collective bargaining) (60-vote threshold).
Additional roll call votes in relation to amendments to the FAA bill are expected.
It's time for the beginning of the budget war. No, not the president's budget. That never matters. (Most commonly used phrase in any Congress with regard to any president's budget: "Dead on arrival.") I'm talking about the continuing resolution, which is not normally a serious part of any budget war. But this one is, because Republicans are nuts. $100 billion in cuts or they'll shut down the government not nutty enough for you? How about defunding the health care law or else they'll... double secret shut down the government? Still not nutty enough? How about give the Republicans the power to reach into every wallet in America and control the destiny of every dollar in them or they'll shut down the government? Now that's nutty!
But that's where we are, or at least where they'll be trying to take us, over the next few days as the House works its way through H.R. 1, the continuing resolution. Under what they're calling a "modified open rule," the bill will come to the floor basically open to any amendment that's been pre-printed in the Congressional Record for at least a day, but no later than today. (Today's the cutoff because consideration of the bill and its amendments is anticipated to run through the end of the week, which in Congress means Thursday afternoon or so.) So some of the nutty demands will be built into the bill from the start. Others will have to find their way in via amendment. But whatever makes it in and survives passage by both houses officially becomes able to take the government hostage.
But watch out for that bicameralism thing. It's a doozy. And it's just not as easy for Republicans to blame President Obama for a shutdown if The Crazy never even makes it out of the Senate. Not that they wouldn't try. I'm sure by the end of the process, Senate Democrats will be accused of being zombie robots controlled from Obama's secret lair inside a volcano or something.
Speaking of the zombie robots, they're still working on that FAA authorization bill, wherein it appears they're ready to make it a crime to distribute nekkid porno-scanner images from airport security. Meh, seems like it ought to be a crime, right?
Today's committee schedule appears below the fold.
UPDATE: Today's Daily Whip:
H.Res. 92 - Rule providing for consideration of H.R. 1 – Fiscal Year Continuing Appropriations Act for FY2011 (Rep. Rogers (KY) – Appropriations) (1 hour of debate) The Rules Committee has recommended a rule with a pre-printing requirement for H.R. 1 . It allows any Member to offer an amendment, provided that they have submitted their amendment and it is printed in the Congressional record (the deadline to submit is the evening of February 15). It also allows for one motion to recommit with instructions.
H.Res. 92 includes a provision that would prohibit the transfer of funds between 302(b) allocations, making it more difficult to offer amendments.
The Rule also provides for martial law authority for any resolution that the Rules committee reports with respect to H.R. 1 from now through February 17.
H.R. 1 – Fiscal Year Continuing Appropriations Act for FY2011 (Rep. Rogers (KY) – Appropriations) H.R. 1 is a continuing resolution that would fund federal departments and agencies for fiscal year 2011. It provides $1.029 trillion in non-emergency discretionary funding for fiscal year 2011. It contains a fully funded Defense appropriations bill with other programs and agencies funded through a continuing appropriations resolution.
While Democrats and Republicans agree that it is critical to reduce the deficit, H.R. 1 is not a real plan to do that. Instead, it makes many irresponsible and misguided cuts in key areas, including:
- Dangerous Cuts in Public Safety: several of which would mean the firing of approximately 1330 police officers and 2400 firefighters on the streets
- Slashing Education, leaving the U.S. behind its global competitors: Some of the cuts would translate to more than 200,000 kids kicked out of the Head Start program and thousands of teachers getting fired. Other cuts would mean an $800 reduction in the maximum Pell grant award, per student
- Rolling back investments in innovation and infrastructure that has made the U.S. a world leader: Some of these innovation cuts include $2.5 billion reduction for NIH funding, rolling back key cancer and disease research; $1.4 billion cut to science and energy research; $2.5 billion rescission to high speed rail projects; and dangerous cuts to our air traffic control system
What? "Martial law authority"? That's what Republicans used to call it when Dems used to waive the normal requirement that rules governing debate on bills couldn't be brought to the floor on the same day they were reported out of committee. Republicans are reserving the right to do this if they need a new rule to modify (i.e., shut down) debate on H.R. 1. It has nothing to do with actual martial law, but leave it to the wingnuts -- when House Republicans used the term in the last Congress, teabagger types "mistakenly" insisted it was Pelosi taking over as World Leader.