Congress is in session this week, facing a September 30 deadline to extend government funding and other programs. A specific funding measure is not currently on the House schedule after Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-LA) continuing resolution (CR) through March 28, 2025 — which also included the SAVE Act bill to ensure only US citizens are registered to vote — was pulled from consideration last week. "An item related to government funding may be considered," the weekly schedule states. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to go out of session September 27 until after the elections. The expectation is the House will need to reach a compromise with the Democratic-led Senate before then, within the next two weeks. As Punchbowl News reported this morning, House Democrats, the Senate, the White House and even some House Republicans want a CR to last through mid-December.

The Senate is back in at 3 p.m. today (Monday, September 16), with a vote at 5:30 p.m. on a judicial nomination. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said last Thursday that a vote addressing the right to IVF will be conducted in the Senate this week.

The House is in pro forma session today and back on Tuesday (September 17), with many bills on the suspension calendar (meaning debate is limited and a two-thirds vote is required for final passage), including some Ways & Means Committee-passed bills:

• H.R. 5861 — BRIDGE for Workers Act, by Rep. Darin LaHood (R-IL), on extending reemployment services and eligibility assessments to all claimants for unemployment benefits
• H.R. 8292 — Taxpayer Data Protection Act, by Chairman Jason Smith (R-MO), to increase penalties for unauthorized disclosure of taxpayer information
• H.R. 3784 — Improving Social Security's Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act, by Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-GA), to require the Social Security Administration (SSA) to provide a single point of contact for those whose SSN was misused or whose card was lost after being sent from the SSA
• H.R. 3800 — Chronic Disease Flexible Coverage Act, by Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-OH), to provide statutory authority for certain guidance from the IRS that expands the types of preventive care that may be offered under high deductible health plans (HDHPs) without a deductible
• H.R. 8314 — No Foreign Election Interference Act, by Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), to impose penalties with respect to contributions to political committees from certain tax-exempt organizations that receive contributions from foreign nationals

Later in the week, the House will vote on a series of bills opposing "Woke Policies" from the Education & Workforce and Financial Services committees, as well as H.J. Res. 136, providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Environmental Protection Agency relating to "Multi-Pollutant Emissions Standards for Model Years 2027 and Later Light-Duty and Medium-Duty Vehicles."

Hearings — The Senate Finance Committee has scheduled a hearing, "Lower Health Care Costs for Americans: Understanding the Benefits of the Inflation Reduction Act," for Tuesday, September 17 (10 a.m.).

The House Ways & Means Health Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on "Investing in a Healthier America: Chronic Disease Prevention and Treatment," for Wednesday, September 18 (2 p.m.).

The Senate Banking Economic Policy Subcommittee has scheduled a hearing on "The Macroeconomic Impacts of Potential Tax Reform in 2025" for Wednesday, September 18 (2 p.m.).

Elections — Either party could win control of the House in this year's elections, and analysts suggest that the margin could still be narrow in the next Congress, as it is currently. Republicans hold a 220-211 majority, with one vacancy (Gallagher) in a safely Republican district. Democrats have three vacancies in districts they are likely to hold (Payne, Jackson Lee, Pascrell). That makes the base ratio heading into the election 221-214, requiring a four-seat gain by Democrats for control next year. Inside Elections said the most likely range is Republicans +5 seats to Democrats +5 seats, suggesting a likely narrow margin for either party in 2025, as Republicans hold in this Congress and Democrats had in the prior Congress (which ended with Democrats in control 220-212, with three vacancies).

The Cook Political Report maintains that there are a roughly even number of House toss-up races. There are 13 Republican toss-ups, 12 of which are in districts won by Biden in 2020. Five of the seats are in California, four in New York/New Jersey, two in presidential battleground Arizona, and one each in Oregon and Nebraska. Democrats, whose House prospects have improved since VP Kamala Harris became the presidential candidate, hold 11 toss-up seats, four of which are in districts Trump won in 2020.

The Senate map leans in favor of Republicans, with Democrats defending nearly twice as many seats (23 including independents, as opposed to 11 for Republicans). The current ratio is 51-49 and Republicans are highly favored to win in West Virginia, given the retirement of Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV). The Cook Political Report rates the Montana race of Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) as "lean Republican." Senator Sherrod Brown's (D-OH) seat and the Michigan seat being vacated by Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) are rated as toss-ups.

A September 12 New York Times survey of competitive Senate races noted, "If former President Donald J. Trump wins the White House, one seat is all the G.O.P. needs to flip the chamber. Should the Senate come down to a 50-50 split, the vice president plays tiebreaker. For Democrats to hold the Senate, the party would most likely need all their incumbents to win; for their candidates to prevail in open seats in Arizona, Michigan and Maryland; and for Ms. Harris to be elected so that her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, can play the tiebreaker in an evenly split chamber."

Much of the focus in the presidential race is on the so-called "Blue Wall" states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin and the "Sun Belt" states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia and North Carolina, with calculations by the campaigns and observers about the combination of wins in which states could deliver the presidency to Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. President Biden flipped Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in 2020, and also won Nevada. Former President Trump won North Carolina.

The Sunday Washington Post reported: "Democrats have spent the last year eyeing a familiar trio of northern states that would deliver the White House in November: Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania are the 'clearest pathway' to victory, Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign leaders wrote in July — as long as she also picks up a single electoral vote in the Omaha area. The Trump team, meanwhile, has been focused on its own path in the Eastern time zone, a veritable 'Red Wall' trifecta that overlaps with the northern 'Blue Wall' around the Great Lakes. 'As long as we hold North Carolina, we just need to win Georgia and Pennsylvania,' a Trump campaign official told reporters last month … "

Policy — Though neither has a fully developed tax plan, both VP Harris and Former President Trump have been rolling out tax proposals piecemeal — most recently Trump's September 12 announcement that he would eliminate taxes on overtime pay. Asked on Face the Nation Sunday about the mechanics of the proposal, Republican VP candidate Senator JD Vance (R-OH) said, "when you work overtime in this country beyond 40 hours, you get time-and-a-half. And the president is saying, if you're one of those select hard workers … then you should get a tax cut."

More broadly, Vance said, "We want American workers to get tax cuts under President Trump's policies, and we want to actually penalize companies that are shipping jobs overseas through tariffs. And Kamala Harris' tax policies are, in fact, the inversion of that. She wants to raise taxes on American workers and actually reward companies for shipping jobs overseas. So, it is a really stark contrast between the agenda of Donald Trump and of Kamala Harris."

Asked about the cost of Trump's proposals for no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on income from Social Security, Vance suggested tariffs could provide offsetting revenue saying, "I think that if we actually balance this out by penalizing some of these companies for manufacturing overseas … " Vance later said tariffs are "a negotiating tactic" and may vary by country — Trump has called for tariffs between 10% and 60%. "You use that as part of the negotiation. This is one thing that Donald Trump was so good at during his first term, is actually negotiating with foreign countries and benefiting American workers in the process," Vance said. "If you say you're not going to do any tariffs, you're basically going into these trade negotiations completely unilaterally disarmed."

On the same program, Gary Cohn, former NEC Director under President Trump and an architect of the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act (TCJA), downplayed the odds of another largely deficit-financed tax bill. Cohn said he assumes that Congress "will look at both corporate and individual tax rates … the House and the Senate are going to be very important to what final tax legislation looks like. And I do think there is growing and growing opposition, in both the House and the Senate, and I would say on both sides of the aisle, for a large deficit tax plan." The tax plans as proposed by both candidates right now "spend a lot of money, [and] don't bring in that much money … So, therefore, the net effect of that is we increase the United States deficit. I don't think there is a lot of appetite in the Congress to do that. We have grown our deficit quite substantially over the last four or five years. Some of that because of the pandemic … I don't believe that Congress has a large appetite to pass a tax plan, on either side, that has a huge deficit component to it."