This report discuses the idea of requiring a balanced budget for the U.S. government and provides an overview of the issues and options that have been raised during prior consideration of proposals for a balanced budget constitutional amendment.

This report is an update of an earlier report regarding Title VII of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and its expiration on January 19, 2018, along with proposed reforms to the FISA process.

This report describes the Department of Housing and Urban Development's (HUD's) 2018 budget appropriations. The report tracks progress on FY2018 HUD appropriations and provides detailed account-level, and in some cases sub-account-level, funding information (Table 1) as well as a discussion of selected key issues.

This report discusses Iran's political and governmental structure, major elections and political unrest (including the Dec. 2017-Jan 2018 protests), and human rights violations, as well as U.S. policy and relations with Iran.

This report describes Kosovo's government and political structure, economy, and relations with the U.S., Serbia, and the European Union (EU).

This report discusses Libya's political and governmental structure, struggles to transition to a stable democratic government after Muammar al Qadhafi was overthrown in 2011, and U.S. policy and assistance in Libya.

This report discusses "smart toys" for children that use the internet to interact with the user. It outlines various security concerns regarding the collection and use of information about children, and whether these toys are governed by the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998.

This report discusses the rules and procedures regarding a Congress member sponsoring or cosponsoring a bill in the House.

This report discusses the U.S. export control system and the initiative started by President Obama to study and make recommendations for reform of the export control system by streamlining processes and consolidating control of the program in one agency.

This report outlines regulations for vessels discharging ballast water into U.S waters, to prevent the spread of invasive species and pollution of bodies of water. It discusses various federal, state, and Coast Guard requirements along with exempted vessel types, and recent legislative action regarding the issue.

This report discusses the 10-20-30 plan of reallocating funds in rural development programs toward counties with systemic poverty levels defined as 20% of the population being at or below poverty level for 30 years. This report explains why targeting funds to persistent poverty counties might be of interest, how "persistent poverty" is defined and measured, and how different interpretations of the definition and different data source selections could yield different lists of counties identified as persistently poor. This report does not compare the 10-20-30 plan's advantages and disadvantages against other policy options, nor does it examine the range of programs or policy goals for which the 1020-30 plan might be an appropriate policy tool.

This report provides an overview of the key issues for Congress related to Egypt and U.S. foreign aid to Egypt. Topics covered include the Egyptian government and economy, terrorist groups operating in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, human rights concerns, and relations with the U.S, including U.S. aid payments.

This report discusses Native American tribes rights to groundwater on tribal land and the recent Supreme Court decision to not review the decision of the Ninth Circuit Court which upheld the groundwater rights of a California Tribe. The concepts of quantity, quality, and pore space as related to groundwater are also discussed.

This report discusses Iran's political and governmental structure, human rights violations and concerns, and relations with the U.S.

This report analyzes the financing of Medicare and its impact on the federal budget. It includes a discussion of the Medicare "trigger," which requires certain actions to be taken should general revenue funding be expected to exceed a certain proportion of total Medicare outlays within a certain number of years.

This report discusses the Missing and Exploited Children Program's various parts such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, The Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, and the Amber Alert program along with their funding levels.

This report discusses the U.S. Department of Agruculture's (USDA) broadband loan and grant program in rural utilities areas.

This report discusses the concept of executive privilege and whether the communications of a president-elect are protected by executive privilege.

This report discusses the results of the Italian Parliamentary election on March 4, 2018 which ended with no party gaining a majority making a coalition necessary. Populist parties gained a significant number of seats and implications of their rise to power for Italy, the EU, NATO, and the U.S. are discussed.

This report discusses energy tax provisions or "tax extenders" which expired at the end of 2017 and their economic impact.

This report discusses Oman's political and governmental structure, economy, foreign policy, and human rights concerns as well as U.S. security assistance and cooperation.

This report discusses the Supreme Court decision in the case of "Digital Realty Trust Inc. v. Somers" which addressed when retaliation protections for whistle-blowers apply under the Dodd-Frank Act. The court ruled that the protections only apply if the whistle-blower reports securities violations to the SEC and not if they only report the violations internally.

This report provides an overview of many of the key arms control and nonproliferation agreements and endeavors of the past 40 years, divided into three sections. The first describes arms control efforts between the United States and the states of the former Soviet Union. The second section describes multilateral nuclear nonproliferation efforts. The final section reviews treaties and agreements that address chemical, biological, and conventional weapons.

This report analyzes legislative proposals that would generally affect the terms and amounts of capital provided to companies by investors. It analyzes a number of current legislative proposals and agency actions to expand both public and private securities offerings through amendments to program design, investor access, and disclosure requirements, among other provisions.