Political Calander Meets Policy Impact; Tax Update; Corporate Transparency Act; Overtime Proposed Rule; Worker Walkaround Rule

In an incredibly rare year for Washington, D.C., it looks like Congress might actually get out of town before Christmas and give us all a much-needed break.  For those who do politics and policy for a living, we have come to expect Congress debating a major fiscal cliff right up until and sometimes past Christmas Day. On more than one occasion, I was calling Members of Congress on Christmas Eve trying to get last minute changes to some bill.  However, two successive Speakers of the House, Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in September and Mike Johnson (R-LA) in November, both managed to pass bipartisan spending resolutions that moved our end-of-year deadline into 2024.  To complicate things, Congress elected to split the government in half for budget purposes and create two separate spending deadlines.   So, half of government runs out of funds on January 19, 2024, and the other half expires February 2^nd, 2024.   The hope is that bifurcating the budget will make negotiations easier, but so far, we have seen very little negotiating happening. Instead, Congress seems impatient to get out of town.  All this will make for a hectic and busy January leading up to NAW’s Executive Summit. 

There are still a few “must pass” bills Congress wants to get done before the New Year, and in all cases the Senate has taken the lead in negotiations, which is typically a good sign. The two biggest bills are the National Defense Authorization Act, which sets spending levels for our armed forces, and a $106 billion supplemental spending request from President Joe Biden, to help fund Ukraine, Israel, Taiwan, and increased security measures on our southern border.  There are ongoing negotiations with both bills, and conventional wisdom says that Congress will find a way forward.