Will spending bill beat shutdown deadline?
Leaders of bipartisan effort haven’t shared details of their plan.
WASHINGTON — Members of Congress are back home for a two-week recess after one of the most bitterly divided and least productive starts in recent history. A new, urgent challenge is waiting for them when they return: finding a way to set aside their anger and mistrust long enough to keep the federal government open.
Government funding expires April 28, which will give Congress five days to unveil, debate and pass a spending bill, or trigger a government shutdown.
“What a mess,” said Paul Brace, a congressional expert at Rice University in Houston, offering his own pessimistic view of the unified Republican control of the House and Senate so far under President Donald Trump. “It was so much easier when all you had to do was oppose Obama.”
Republicans control both chambers of Congress and the White House, yet their sole legislative accomplishments are a few measures reversing obscure regulations implemented in the closing months of Barack Obama’s presidency.
The health care debate has been painful and embarrassing for Republicans. After passing dozens of repeal bills that were never going to be enacted under Obama, they couldn’t quite unify on a plan that could actually become law under Trump.
House Republicans “have differences of opinion. And they aren’t just political differences, they are policy differences,” said Republican Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio. “They’re going to have a tough time coming together without some Democratic votes, and I think that’s the acknowledgment.”
Republicans and Trump have yet to try to engage Democrats on health care, or other significant legislative priorities. Confirmation of Trump’s Supreme Court nominee came only after Republicans changed Senate rules to overcome Democratic opposition.
The only exception has been that through all the partisan rancor, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been quietly negotiating an omnibus spending bill that would fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.
Nobody has seen the result yet, which leaves conservatives suspicious about why their leaders are waiting so long to unveil the legislation.
“It’s like a florist being surprised by Valentine’s Day,” said Mark Meadows of North Carolina, chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. “I don’t get it.”
Democrats involved in the talks say the process has been fair and productive, and Republican leaders are praising the chances for bipartisanship.
“These kinds of bills can’t pass without a reasonable number of the party of the minority in the Senate,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell told reporters Friday. “And we are optimistic we’ll be able to work all that out and meet the deadline at the end of the month.”