The end-of-year spending bills expected to be considered by the House today and the Senate later this week include several placeholder provisions extending key anti-poverty programs.  Those provisions (found on page 1463 of one of the massive bills) include yet another straight extension of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) cash welfare program, this time for five months.  That short-term straight extension (i.e. no programmatic changes or funding adjustments) is consistent with recent TANF history, and comes despite recent bipartisan Senate calls for making modest TANF improvements coupled with a longer program extension. The spending bill also includes a five-month straight extension of the Health Profession Opportunity Grants (HPOG) program.  The House Ways and Means Committee this fall approved legislation to significantly increase funding for that program, but those increases have been shelved at least for now.

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