A bipartisan group of congressional leaders from both chambers have agreed to the outline for six funding bills ahead of the March 1 deadline and a stopgap funding bill to allow Congress time to negotiate the other spending bills and pass them before March 22.
The agreement buys time for lawmakers as long as the stopgap funding measure can be passed before midnight Friday when the first deadline for a tranche of four spending bills will expire.
“To give the House and Senate Appropriations Committees adequate time to execute on this deal in principle, including drafting, preparing report language, scoring and other technical matters, and to allow members 72 hours to review, a short-term continuing resolution to fund agencies through March 8 and the 22 will be necessary, and voted on by the House and Senate this week,” the congressional leaders said in their statement.
The bipartisan committee, made up of House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries are ignoring warnings from both the right and left while counting on enough support for both Republicans and Democrats in the House to pass it.
According to CNN, the six bills in the proposed agreement cover funding for:
- The Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration
- The Commerce and Justice Departments
- Science, Energy and Water development
- The Interior Department
- Military Construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs
- The Transportation Department and Housing and Urban Development
The bipartisan deal marks progress toward averting a shutdown, but uncertainty remains. Both the House and the Senate will need to pass first the stopgap measure before Saturday, and then pass all 12 spending bills by later next month.
Johnson, a Louisiana conservative who has been speaker for about four months, now will have to sell the deal to his rebellious Republican conference. Many House Republicans have taken a hard line on spending, complicating efforts to pass a full-year budget plan and requiring repeated rounds of short-term patches. Some members have objected to the use of short-term bills, called continuing resolutions, to defer hard decisions.
Nebraska Republican Don Bacon will vote "yes" on the short-term funding bill. “The speaker has gotta do what he’s gotta do to govern. And I think [stopgap bills] are terrible,” he said. “But closing the government down is even worse, right?”
Many Republicans disagree.
Rep. Byron Donalds (R.-Fla.) said, “This town always needs more time to come up with deals that are not in the best interests of the American people."
If Congress always did what was in the "best interests of the American people," we wouldn't have a $33 trillion debt.
The most likely scenario is that after some delays (and probably at least one more stopgap funding measure), the 12 appropriations bills will be passed.
Just in time to start working on the 2025 appropriations bills.
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