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6 days ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Erin Durkin |Jonathan Tamari |Skye Witley
Big Beautiful Work in ProgressHouse Republicans are getting closer to nailing down the components of the “big beautiful bill” that President Donald Trump wants, combining government borrowing authority with tax breaks, more military spending and a lot less spending overall. Our budget team will be watching over the weekend for the thorniest part of that package: the segment dealing with spending on Medicaid, the government’s health program for the lowest-income Americans.
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1 week ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Erin Schilling |Chris Cioffi
All Eyes on Powell, AgainIf the economists and Wall Street experts are right, today will build on President Donald Trump’s frustration with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. While the Fed has more than one part of the economy to keep an eye on — employment, inflation, and avoiding recession are all concerns — Trump’s been focusing on the benchmark interest rate, which has stayed steady for months. “NO INFLATION, THE FED SHOULD LOWER ITS RATE!!!” he posted late last week on Truth Social.
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1 week ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Greg Giroux |Kellie Lunney |Ian K. Kullgren
Underwood’s OpportunityIf she can rattle the Trump administration official in charge of lightening-fast deportations, Rep. Lauren Underwood will elevate her profile inside a party hungry to find its next viral provocateur. Underwood is the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee that vets the Department of Homeland Security’s annual appropriation. She’ll have dibs on that side’s first question when DHS Secretary Kristi Noem faces that panel this morning.
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1 week ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Jack Fitzpatrick |Ken Tran |Olivia Gyapong
Trump Budget 1.0It’s not going to be full of details but what matters is that Congress will get a budget request from the White House today. Appropriators want to get going on hearings with department heads, a part of the fiscal 2026 process that can’t happen until there’s at least a skeleton of a formal request — or in the Capitol Hill shorthand, a “skinny budget” — with a fuller version sometime later.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Jack Fitzpatrick |Ken Tran |Lillianna Byington
Private Budget MeetingNow that House committees finished drafting the easier parts of their tax-and-spending package, the next key development will happen behind closed doors this morning. The White House government-slashing supervisor, Budget Director Russell Vought, meets with top Appropriations Committee leaders, Jack Fitzpatrick and Ken Tran report in today’sBudget Brief.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Lillianna Byington |Ellen M. Gilmer |Maeve Sheehey
100 Days Down. Now What? Based on the first 100 days of the new administration, we can look forward to a next chapter that will show Congress still stuck on the sidelines, acting more like President Donald Trump’s support staff than an equal branch of government. Democrats aren’t numerous enough to negotiate changes to legislation and Republicans are invested in executing Trump’s vision.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Andrew Kreighbaum |Ellen M. Gilmer |Robert Iafolla
Taking Stock of Trump’s 100 DaysPresident Donald Trump is preparing for his 100-days-in-office victory lap in Michigan, where auto companies were hard hit by his tariffs because so many car and truck parts are imported from other countries, especially Canada. By the time he heads out this afternoon, Trump will be able to tell the folks in Michigan that he’s backing off from the problem he caused by lifting some levies on foreign parts for vehicles made inside the US.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Greg Giroux |Jack Fitzpatrick |Roxana Tiron
Now the Harder PartThere are so many congressional spending votes over the course of a normal cycle that it’s a little challenging to explain why what’s about to happen is special. So please indulge an analogy. Think of federal spending as a giant construction project — a new mansion, maybe. Decisions about how tall to build, which amenities to include, the number of rooms, and more get delegated to a 535-person planning team.
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2 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Jack Fitzpatrick |Greg Giroux |Kellie Lunney
100 Days Old and a Wish ListNext week will bring the 100th day of Donald Trump’s second administration, a milestone that’s been used to gauge the start of presidential administrations since Franklin Delano Roosevelt made it a big deal in his first term. For Trump, the week will bring celebration — his press secretary announced a rally in Michigan on Tuesday — plus a long to-do list that will depend on the cooperation of Congress. That includes two kinds of action on cutting federal spending.
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3 weeks ago | 
news.bgov.com | Katherine Rizzo |Roy Strom |Kate Ackley |Jack Fitzpatrick
Small-Town Impact If Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency gets its way, the federal government will terminate 653 building leases. Jack Fitzpatrick reports that the shutdown hit list disproportionately targets small towns. For instance, Somerset, Pa., population 5,898, would lose the office used by the National Park Service to oversee operations of the Flight 93 memorial, Fort Necessity National Battlefield, and other federal historic sites.
