The deadline to pass a bill to fund the government in Fiscal Year 2024 isn’t until Sept. 30, but there are already signs of trouble. Congress can’t get its act together to fund the government for an entire year, so once again, it’s going to try to pass a stopgap spending bill to fund the government for a few weeks.
No one is surprised. The reason for the delay this time is a group of about two dozen Republicans want to renege on the deal that McCarthy made with Biden about holding spending down. They want even deeper cuts — something Biden and the Democrats will refuse to do.
So far, there’ve been no formal talks between Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.). But it’s generally believed on the Hill that the short-term funding bill would probably have to last until Christmas.
The Senate has actually reported out 12 appropriations bills — all in line with the Fiscal Responsibility Act negotiated by President Joe Biden and McCarthy.
The Senate, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and pass funding bills, is operating on a bipartisan basis by pursuing spending levels both parties support and avoiding controversial policy provisions that either side sees as a poison pill.
“If McCarthy follows the hard right and tries to do a partisan bill he’s going to lose,” Schumer said. “The hard right wants to shut down the government. But McCarthy knows that that would be a disaster not only for the country, but for his party.”
Some Republican allies of McCarthy have been warning for weeks that a continuing resolution is inevitable given the lack of time. In recent years, Congress has regularly punted the deadline to achieve a longer funding deal.
House Republicans are digging in for a government shutdown. And that’s even if Congress can pass the stopgap spending bill.
A short-term deal could pose a problem as members of the House Freedom Caucus have explicitly said they would not support a short-term continuing resolution and do not fear a government shutdown. A group of 15 Texas House Republicans are also vowing to vote down any bill that funds the Department of Homeland Security unless changes to U.S. border and migration policy are included. The GOP can only bear to lose four votes in order to move forward with legislation without any Democratic support.
Adding to the spending standoff: Biden’s new supplemental request for roughly $40 billion for additional assistance for Ukraine, funding for border policies, and disaster recovery efforts. Those funding priorities will be a difficult sell for House conservatives who are opposed to providing more Ukraine aid and have already expressed their disapproval of the spending levels laid out in the Senate’s bill.
It took 50 years of deficit spending to create a $32 trillion national debt. But Republicans insist on wanting to balance the budget in a few years. How they get to a meeting of the minds with Democrats on federal spending this time is unknown.
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