In the News
Sens. Patty Murray and Bernie Sanders on Wednesday led a group of lawmakers in introducing legislation that would avert a fast-approaching disaster by approving $16 billion in emergency childcare funding each year for the next half-decade.
The bill comes just 17 days before billions of dollars of childcare funding that was approved to keep the crucial industry afloat during the coronavirus pandemic is set to expire, potentially forcing tens of thousands of childcare programs across the country to shut down.
Democrats in Congress are pushing for a new round of money to keep the nation’s child care industry afloat, saying thousands of programs are at risk of closing when federal pandemic relief runs out this month.
Legislation introduced in both chambers on Wednesday would provide $16 billion a year over the next five years, awarded as grants to help child care programs cover everyday costs. It’s meant to replace $24 billion in relief that was passed in 2021 in the American Rescue Plan and is set to expire Sept. 30.
Joy Lee departed college with a journalism degree and an eye on broadcast reporting. Instead, she found her way to Capitol Hill — and Democratic leaders have been grateful ever since.
A group of Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, D-Wash., are planning on introducing legislation this week that would provide $16 billion in funding for child care, sources familiar with the effort say.
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Chairman Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and House Minority Whip Katherine M. Clark, D-Mass., are also leading the longshot stand-alone effort to secure the funding, which House appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., is also pushing.
With Maui desperately in need of federal aid as residents struggle to recover from the Aug. 8 wildfires, the government shutting down and the Federal Emergency Management Agency running out of money “is absolutely not an option,” Hawaii’s U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda said.
“Disasters are continuing to strike across our country.” Tokuda said Wednesday. “It is so critical that the billions and billions of dollars that we need to fund FEMA is put there when we go back in September.”
House Republican leaders on Thursday postponed votes for a must-pass government funding bill and dismissed lawmakers to start a six-week recess, raising the risk of a government shutdown in September amid simmering internal conflicts over spending levels and hot-button social issues.
The House passed its first fiscal 2024 spending bill Thursday, funding veterans benefits and military construction projects, by a razor-thin margin along party lines that signaled a troubled road ahead for the appropriations process.
The $317.4 billion Military Construction-VA bill, usually considered the least controversial of the 12 annual spending measures, passed on a 219-211 vote. Democrats marched in lockstep against the bill, saying it was chock-full of extremist policy riders and would cut military housing money needed by troops and their families.
House Republicans abandoned efforts to pass a spending bill to fund the Agriculture Department and the F.D.A. on Thursday before heading home for summer break, stymied by internal divisions over funding and social policy that threaten to make it impossible for them to avoid a shutdown in the fall.
House Republicans united to narrowly pass major defense policy legislation on Friday that restricts the Pentagon policies on abortion access, medical care for transgender troops and diversity in a narrow vote.
But the many culture war provisions Republicans packed into the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act to win conservative votes are doomed in the Democratic-controlled Senate.
The House is set to vote on Thursday on whether to limit abortion access, bar transgender services and end diversity training for military personnel, part of a series of major changes that hard-right Republicans are seeking to the annual defense policy bill, including yanking U.S. aid to Ukraine.