I think we will all have to bone up on how a Conference Committee works, particularly one that is working on budgetary matters. In short, a Conference Committee, when it can come to an agreement, creates a report:
The conference report proposes new legislative language, which is presented as an amendment to the original bill passed by each chamber. The conference report also includes a joint explanatory statement, which documents, among other things, the legislative history of the bill.
The conference report proceeds directly to the floor of each chamber for a vote; it cannot be amended. The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 limits Senate debate on conference reports on budget reconciliation bills to 10 hours.
The House and Senate have each passed budget resolutions for the next fiscal year. A Conference Committee will be set up to reconcile the two bills. If (a big if) there is a compromise and a report, then the bill cannot be filibustered in the Senate. If there is not a compromise and a report, then we’ll be back to passing continuing resolutions or facing a second government shutdown.
The Democrats will have two basic bottom lines. The first is that spending will be above the sequestration level. The second is that there will be additional revenues to help fund governmental operations. If the Republicans don’t accede to those two demands, the Conference Committee will fail.
Most observers consider this, by far, the most likely outcome. All previous attempts to get the Republicans to agree to new revenues have failed. However, there is less appetite for governing through the sequester than there used to be, and almost no appetite for a second government shutdown. Moreover, if the Republicans actually want to do anything about our long-term fiscal outlook, they will have to trade some new revenue for any cuts to entitlement spending.
If you want some idea what might happen, you should read a recent column by Walter Pincus about the 2014 sequestration cuts. Here’s a taste:
For the fiscal 2014 budget, both houses of Congress took care of defense, pushing numbers far above the BCA cap.
Should sequester continue, the House’s fiscal 2014 defense figure would have to come down $47.9 billion, while the Senate’s would have to drop $54.1 billion, according to the nonprofit Bipartisan Policy Center.
Subsequently, the center says, “the impact of the defense sequester . . . will double in fiscal 2014 and triple in fiscal 2015 compared to fiscal 2013.”
The report found that if the defense sequester caps were not changed, between the Reagan administration defense budget and the end of the sequester in fiscal 2021, ground divisions will drop from 20 to six, Air Force fighter and attack planes will drop by 1,632 aircraft, and Navy ships will drop by 338, with the aircraft carrier force declining from 15 carriers to seven in 2021.
On the other hand, the GOP-controlled House slashed the non-defense fiscal 2013 figure below the fiscal 2014 BCA cap level while the Democratic-led Senate would have to drop its figure, $34.3 billion, for 2014 non-defense discretionary funding
On Saturday, Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) discussed the impact the sequester would have this fiscal year on domestic programs, beginning with Head Start, which would cut an additonal 177,000 children.
The rest of his list was equally harsh: 1.3 million fewer students would receive Title I education assistance; 760,000 fewer households would receive less heating and cooling assistance under the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program; 9,000 fewer special education staff would be in the classroom; $291 million less for child-care subsidies for working families; $2 billion less for the National Institutes of Health, which would mean 1,300 fewer research grants.
Congress had to do something affirmative to avoid these draconian cuts. They can put off the day of reckoning with more continuing resolutions, but there will be a lot of pressure on Republicans to make a deal. Since making a deal will require them to violate their pledge to Grover Norquist, this process will be painful. But the odds of it actually happening have never been higher, thanks to them overplaying their hand and losing the support of the public.
