Today in Congress: winding up the week in appropriations

Yes, we'll be going live with Daily Kos Radio again today, kicking off at 10 a.m. for our morning segment.

Just the House today. Senator Elvis has left the Capitol. Recapping yesterday's action:

The House took a break from working on appropriations bills that are under veto threat, to spend the first five hours or so of the work day passing a different bill under veto threat. Specifically, the Protect Medical Innovation (by cutting taxes) Act. The bill repeals a 2.3% excise tax on medical device manufacturers that was part of the Affordable Care Act, and it's paid for by recapturing overpayments of health coverage subsidies made when a taxpayer's income increases from one year to the next, and the subsidies were paid based on the previous year's income. The Hill's Floor Action blog encapsulates the issues nicely.

So what's the incentive to work harder and earn more next year, right? Or something like that.

Afterwards, the House turned back to the Homeland Security appropriations bill, and worked through another marathon amendment session, finally winding things up with a vote on passage at about 10 p.m.

But they weren't done quite yet, and spent another hour and a half on Rep. Paul Broun's (R-GA-10) motion to instruct conferees on the surface transportation bill. Now, I didn't get to see the debate on this, but I would have thought this was about as mundane as a motion could get. And yet I see from the House Clerk's notes that someone was threatened with having their words taken down during the debate, which is usually cause for some excitement. So they at least had that going for them.

The Senate voted overwhelmingly to invoke cloture on the motion to proceed to the farm bill, 90-8. The eight, of course, being the usual suspects. No word yet if there's any deal in place with regard to amendments, but the process is underway, and those voting against cloture today are usually among the sources of the more controversial amendments. We'll see what percolates up when they return next week.

Looking ahead to today:

The House will cram one more appropriations bill in before breaking for the weekend. This next one up is the Legislative Branch approps bill, and I'm uncertain of the veto threat status of this one. I'm not exactly sure whether it's the case that every single appropriations bill will more or less automatically be subject to veto because they're all going to be out of compliance with the Budget Control Act, based as they are on the "deemed" non-budget. But without having looked the bill over, I'd guess off the top of my head that this particular bill might not vary as greatly from what was expected under last summer's agreement, just because they don't tend to go hog wild with overspending on themselves, but neither do they usually cut any deeper than they really have to. But if most of the other numbers from other bills are out of whack, it might just have made it impossible for this bill's numbers not to be out of whack, too.

Before finally bolting for the doors, they'll also need to hold the postponed vote held over from late last night on the Broun motion to instruct. Last vote is expected in the early afternoon, which means those of you at Netroots Nation and expecting House Members to show up will likely find them arriving on early evening flights, in time for dinner.

The Senate is not in session today.

Today's floor and committee schedules appear below the fold.