Congress funds the government but faces another shutdown threat before Christmas
U.S. President Joe Biden in the Oval Office at the White House, in Washington, U.S. September 23, 2024.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
Lawmakers averted a government shutdown 40 days before the election, but they’ll face another funding crunch right before the holidays and a new Congress and president take office.
Bipartisan negotiators have been trying to make progress on the 12 bills needed to fund federal agencies for the 2025 fiscal year.
Yet there’s little time to pass those bills during the lame-duck session; House members and senators are scheduled to be in Washington for only five weeks between Election Day and the end of the year, and the two chambers haven’t reached agreement on any of the dozen measures, known as appropriations bills.
A more likely scenario is that Democrats and Republicans would strike an end-of-year deal on a massive, catchall omnibus spending package or punt the issue once again with another continuing resolution, or CR, that would extend funding into the new year on a short-term basis.
They’ll need a new funding agreement before federal funding runs out on Dec. 20.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., insisted this week that the days of the just-before-Christmas omnibus — loaded up with legislative priorities from both parties — are over.
“We are not going to return to the Christmas omnibus spending tradition, and that’s the commitment I’ve made to everyone,” Johnson told reporters after the House passed a stopgap funding measure Wednesday.
Pressed about whether he would promise not to put an omnibus on the floor in December, Johnson wouldn’t answer directly: “We’ve worked very hard to break that tradition … and we’ll see what happens in December.”
Senior appropriators said Congress are likely to end up where they have before when they’ve faced a lame-duck, year-end funding deadline: with a sweeping omnibus spending package.
“I expect that we’ll negotiate an omnibus,” said Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., a member of the Appropriations Committee, noting that Johnson had said there would be no more CRs, then a new CR passed Wednesday.
“The speaker, respectfully, doesn’t have the ability to draw lines in the sand when he can’t even control his own caucus. They continually need Democrats to actually get anything done, and we are governing from the minority,” she continued. “And so I’m pretty confident that at the end of the day, we’re going to make sure that we pass omnibus funding.”
Far more House Democrats than Republicans voted for Wednesday’s CR that will prevent a shutdown from starting next week, continuing a pattern of the minority’s carrying must-pass legislation through the lower chamber this Congress.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., predicted that the two parties could come to a deal and avoid a shutdown in December. But he said the results of the election will dictate what eventually happens.
Continued divided government could lead to tense negotiation, while, for example, if Republicans sweep the House, the Senate and the White House, they may push for another short-term funding patch into 2025, after they take the reins of power.
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