Gary Cohn, President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser, said Wednesday that he expects Congress to pass a two-week extension of federal funding and deal with other issues in January.
“We’ll deal with caps and we’ll deal with all the spending issues -- military issues, and all the other issues at the beginning of next year,” he said at an a Axios event in Washington.
McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer have given some insight into their priorities. McConnell said Monday he wants to reauthorize the Children’s Health Insurance Program, extend government wiretapping authority, pass a veterans’ health measure, fund disaster relief and include two proposals intended to reduce Obamacare insurance premiums.
Another candidate for inclusion is waiver of “pay-as-you-go” rules that otherwise would automatically cut Medicare spending to offset part of the revenue lost in the tax-cut legislation.
Schumer said Tuesday he wants more money to combat the opioid crisis plus enactment of the CHIP and Obamacare health bills, disaster relief and protection against deportation for 800,000 young undocumented immigrants known as “dreamers.” He warned against a simple funding extension that would include “some of these items but not others.”
“That won’t work. We should be doing all of these things together instead of in a piecemeal, week-by-week fashion,” Schumer said.
Here are the items that may be added to the spending bill, from the most likely to least likely.
Jan. 19 Stopgap:
The House and Senate are talking about the same extension date for a short-term spending bill. Senate Democrats have made clear -- and Republicans have conceded -- that the House GOP proposal to include a full-year’s funding for defense won’t pass the Senate, even if it clears the House. The bill could contain $4 billion in emergency missile defense funds the administration has requested to counter the North Korean threat.
National Flood Insurance Program: