Congress Faces Long To-Do List Before Year's End - Lawmakers Struggling to Reach Agreement on Farm Programs, Food Stamps, Budget for Current Fiscal Year

From The Wall Street Journal:

 

Congress is heading into the final stretch of its legislative session with a pile of year-end policy decisions before it and little time to address them.

 

Congress needs to finish the fiscal 2014 budget, though its drop-dead deadline isn't until Jan. 15. In October, lawmakers agreed to extend current funding levels through mid-January as part of the deal to reopen the federal government.

Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are hoping that before then, a House-Senate budget conference committee will reach a deal on an overall spending cap for the rest of fiscal 2014 that would replace some of the scheduled across-the-board cuts, known as the sequester, with longer-term cuts in mandatory benefit programs such as federal employee pensions. If they don't reach and pass such an agreement, spending will drop from $986 billion now to $967 billion in mid-January, with most of those cuts coming from the Pentagon.

 

Some lawmakers also want to block a year-end payment reduction for doctors under Medicare, a cut rooted in a 1997 budget law that aimed to keep the growth of Medicare payment rates in check. As scheduled cuts have grown, Congress has balked each year and passed short-term measures known as the "doc fix."

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said that if Congress enacts no "doc fix" in December, physicians' Medicare payments would be cut by 24%—a reduction that could drive many doctors out of participating in the program.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee has approved a bill to solve the problem that would cost $175 billion over 10 years. The top Democrats and Republicans on the House and Senate tax-writing committees have also proposed a joint framework to permanently fix the problem. They plan to consider it in mid-December.

Also at month's end, emergency benefits for the long-term unemployed expire. Democrats have pushed to continue the program of extended benefits for an additional year, arguing that while the 7.3% jobless rate logged in October is down from a high of 10% in October 2009, it is still high by historical standards. But a one-year extension would cost roughly $25 billion, and Republicans have historically resisted its continuation.

Congress's to-do list also includes passing a new five-year farm bill to replace legislation that has already lapsed. But lawmakers are divided over how to move away from a system of direct payments to farmers and how deeply to reduce spending on nutrition programs, known as food stamps.

One issue the White House is hoping Congress doesn't have time for is passing new sanctions on Iran, arguing they would jeopardize the deal recently reached to curb Tehran's nuclear program.