Appropriations

Tax writers in the House will turn their attention back to reforming the code this week as they await information about the IRS’s targeting of conservative groups. 

The House Ways and Means Committee on Thursday will hold a hearing on how tax havens have eroded the U.S. tax base. It will be the panel’s first hearing on tax reform since the IRS scandal broke last month.

Although no public events are scheduled on the IRS targeting this week, staffers for Ways and Means and other congressional panels are interviewing IRS officials behind the scenes to lay the groundwork for more hearings.

The tax reform discussion will continue on Friday morning when the primary congressional advocates of tax reform — Ways and Means Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) — speak about their plans at a public breakfast hosted by The Christian Science Monitor.

The Senate Appropriations Committee will begin moving its 12 annual spending bills the week of June 17. Read more...

The Speaker wrote to the president urging him to “reconsider” his threats to veto bills that overwhelmingly passed the House this week.

The House on Thursday passed its second 2014 spending bill of the year, one that would provide $38.9 billion in discretionary funds for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

The bill, which includes funding for disaster aid, counterterrorism programs and border protection, was approved in a 245-182 vote. Twenty-five Democrats supported it, and 10 Republicans opposed it.

The House voted Thursday morning to defund President Obama's orders that allow officials to focus deportation efforts on illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes.

Republicans have argued that these orders amount to the selective enforcement of U.S. immigration laws that discourages enforcement against children who were brought to the United States illegally, or illegal immigrant adults who are not in any legal trouble. Many Republicans have dubbed Obama's orders as "administrative amnesty."

The House passed a handful of minor amendments to the 2014 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spending bill before adjourning at 12:30 a.m.

Late Wednesday and early Thursday, members also engaged in some heated debate over amendments on immigration and the Transportation Security Administration.

The DHS would be prevented from entering into contracts until officials report on the need for the ammo and its cost.

The liberal Center for American Progress on Thursday proposed a new way to replace part of the nine years of automatic spending cuts enforced by sequestration, which started March 1.

CAP, the think tank closest in many ways to the Obama administration, is floating replacing sequestration for 2014, 2015 and 2016, essentially throwing in the towel on the current fiscal year, which ends in October.

The group argues that the rest of the $1.2 trillion total sequester can be replaced later and trying to replace it all now will likely lead to a continued deadlock.

The most difficult aspect of the CAP plan for the sequester for Republicans to swallow will most likely be the way to counts past tax increases to offset the deficit impact of turning off future spending cuts.

The House on Wednesday quickly eliminated language in a 2014 spending bill that would have effectively banned immigration from Brazil for a year.

The language was a proposal from Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), and included in the Department of Homeland Security spending bill in a House Appropriations Committee markup. Ryan's language was aimed at pressuring Brazil to extradite Claudia Hoerig to the United States for trial in the murder of her husband, Air Force Major Karl Hoerig.

The House on Wednesday voted down two Democratic attempts to cut a program that gives some authority to state and local officials to enforce immigration laws.

Democrats oppose the so-called 287(g) program as something that has caused racial tensions in local communities between police and residents. As a result, they tried twice to pare back the program with amendments to H.R. 2217, the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act.