Senate Cancels Two Weeks of August Recess

As the Senate struggles to pass their healthcare bill, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced on Tuesday that the Senate will remain in session for the first two weeks of August. The upper chamber had planned to take the entire month off per congressional tradition.

McConnell said:

"In order to provide more time to complete action on important legislative items and process nominees that have been stalled by a lack of cooperation from our friends across the aisle, the Senate will delay the start of the August recess until the third week of August.”

It’s unclear whether the Senate will have the votes to pass a healthcare bill and send the legislation to conference committee to iron out differences with the House-passed bill. That uncertainty is delaying tax reform, as the extent of budget savings in the GOP healthcare bill would impact their budget-neutral tax reform policy.

Complicating the matter is the fact that Congress can only have one active reconciliation bill at a time. The healthcare bill and the budget are both reconciliation bills, so Congress can debate either healthcare or the budget, but not both at the same time. The longer the healthcare debate drags on, the longer Republicans will have to wait to bring up the next budget reconciliation bill, which will be their vehicle for implementing tax reform.

Basically, Congress is running way behind schedule and healthcare and tax reform are only two items in an increasingly growing and urgent list of legislative items that need to get passed in the months ahead.

The House hasn’t yet passed any of the 12 annual appropriations bills for the 2018 fiscal year. These bills fund the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, and countless other vital departments and government services. When these bills leave the House, the Senate still needs to pass them and the president must sign them into law before the end of September. If not, Congress will need to pass a continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown.

Also, in October the Treasury runs out of the "extraordinary measures" its using to service the national debt, and Congress will need to approve an increase in the debt limit to avoid default.

Currently, the House as not indicated whether they intend to follow the Senate’s lead and remain in session for the first two weeks of August, but the House Freedom Caucus has stated that they support cancelling the August recess.

Congress has a lot to attend to before summer draws to a close.

Tell your reps whether you think the House should work through some or all of its August recess to accomplish its legislative priorities using the Take Action button.

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— Eric Revell

(Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr / Creative Commons)