With President-elect Trump set to be inaugurated on the 20th, activity in Congress is beginning to ramp up. Already, key committees are planning hearings on issues critical to the incoming administration and Congress. As we look ahead, it is clear that Congress plans to take aggressive action on health care and tax reform. The political…
Election predictions were proved wrong last month as Republicans outperformed expectations in the House, the Senate and the presidential race. One of the impacts of this result is that December, which was expected to be a busy period in Washington, was turned upside down. Rather than negotiate with President Obama, Republican leadership in Congress has…
With the election less than a week away and Congress out of session, this is a good opportunity to update readers on the status of implementation of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Passed in December 2015, ESSA overhauled the nation’s preeminent law overseeing public education, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. As a quick…
With the end of the fiscal year approaching and no agreement in sight, members of Congress and President Obama agreed last week on a short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR), that will keep the government open until December 9. A CR extends an agency’s current funding level for the duration of the…
With Congress out of session and not scheduled to return until mid-September, August provides all of us an opportunity to take a step back and assess the year to date. NEA Appropriation As we’ve mentioned, NASAA and other arts organizations were successful in petitioning Congress to once again support an increase in funding for the…
As we’ve reported, after months of inaction and infighting, both the House and the Senate took demonstrable steps toward passing legislation funding federal agencies, including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), in June. To recap, the House of Representatives is considering legislation increasing funding the for NEA by $2 million, while the Senate’s bill…
As we reported a few weeks ago, the House Interior Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) budget, released and considered its draft legislation funding the federal arts agency for fiscal year 2017. In the bill, the subcommittee proposes increasing the NEA budget by $2 million, to $149.85 million.…
A consistent refrain in this column in recent months has been the growing uncertainty about the appropriations process in the U.S. Congress. While it has been mentioned before, it is worth restating that, traditionally by early May, legislation has already been introduced in the House and Senate appropriating funds for the National Endowment for the…
The first week in April is usually a busy period in Washington, not only because tourists flood the city to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom, but because it is without question the most active period in the appropriations season. Committees in both the House and Senate are engulfed in negotiating and passing the…
Next week, arts advocates from throughout the country will travel to Washington, D.C., for Arts Advocacy Day. They will be arriving at an interesting time in the evolution of national arts policy. The last of year of any presidential administration generates natural and often healthy questions for any advocacy community. Some are retrospective: Did we…
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