Congress will probably have to punt to keep the government open in October

On Jul 30, 2024

[ad_1]

Lawmakers in Congress haven’t left themselves much choice if they want to fund the government and prevent a government shutdown in a few months: They’ll need to kick the can down the road.

The House left Washington last week, and the Senate will soon follow, with scant progress made toward passing the 12 annual spending bills, or appropriations, that keep vital agencies and government programs running. Current federal financing expires Sept. 30, the end of the 2024 fiscal year.

Without new funding or an extension, vast portions of the government — including functions of the Transportation Department, Internal Revenue Service and National Park Service — would go offline. Military service members would miss paychecks but would be required to remain on the job.

The Republican-controlled House has passed five of the dozen bills — all on virtually party-line votes with such steep budget cuts and culture-war policy provisions that they stand no chance of becoming law. The Democratic-controlled Senate has not passed any appropriations bills but has greenlighted seven of them through the committee process with broad bipartisan support.

With lawmakers on recess all of August, Congress will almost definitely need a stopgap funding bill, called a “continuing resolution” or CR, to avert a shutdown. They come back to Washington just weeks before the deadline.

“Aren’t we in this territory every year?” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) told The Washington Post. “My assumption is we’re doing a CR.”

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), chair of the House Appropriations Committee, in June said he hoped a final government funding package could come together between November and the start of the new year, acknowledging that a temporary funding bill would be necessary.

Key negotiators broadly agree on potentially appropriating extra money for disaster relief, including to reconstruct Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, rebuild parts of Hawaii decimated by fires, and address other areas of the country harmed by storms and tornadoes.

That doesn’t mean the funding process will be easy, though.

Cole and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) have put forward legislation with major boosts for the Defense Department and veterans’ programs, while cutting public health, education, transportation, housing and the State Department. The bills jettison a deal struck last year with President Biden to exclude $69 billion in funding from counting against annual budget caps.

The bills also include archconservative policy provisions on cultural issues. The Defense Department bill would prohibit funding for military service members to travel for reproductive health care and for activities that “bring discredit upon the military, such as a drag queen story hour for children or the use of drag queens as military recruiters.”

The State Department bill would also prohibit the use of federal funds to help civilians from Gaza settle in the United States. Another bill prevents funding from going to the FBI’s diversity and inclusion department.

Those policies and the funding cuts stake out hard-right bargaining positions for the CR fight to come.

Democrats broadly…