Congress again facing funding shutdown
Congressional leaders are preparing to force government funding legislation worth $1.7 trillion into law next week as the federal government staggers toward yet another shutdown deadline.
Unless Congress acts, about 20 percent of the federal government’s domestic operations would shut down on March 2 — giving lawmakers just a few days to avert a partial closure. The debate is part of a larger saga on Capitol Hill over federal spending, on issues that include government shutdowns as well as support for Ukraine and Israel.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told members of his Republican conference Friday night that some elements of the spending bills lawmakers will consider are “not home runs and grand slams,” according to a partial transcript of the GOP conference call obtained by The Washington Post, but carried plenty of wins on policy and spending cuts with which the GOP should be pleased.
“I don’t think anybody on this call thinks that we’re going to be able to use the appropriations process to fundamentally remake major areas of policy,” Johnson said. “If you’re expecting a lot of home runs and grand slams here, I admit you’ll be disappointed. But we will be able to secure a number of policy victories, both in bill text and report language, or other provisions and cuts that severely undermine the [Biden] administration’s programs and objectives. These bills will be littered with singles and doubles that we should be proud of, especially in our small majority.”
Not all Republicans were pleased with the outcome. “We are not winning,” said one person familiar with the call, who, like others in this report, spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Johnson did not discuss specific policy provisions on the call, multiple people said.
Multiple people familiar with House and Senate negotiations said leaders were nearing an agreement on legislation to fund the departments of Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, Transportation, and Housing and Urban Development. Spending authority for those agencies is set to expire next weekend. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss fragile negotiations.
Funding for the remaining 80 percent of the federal government — including the departments of Commerce, Justice, State, Defense, Homeland Security, Interior, Labor, Education, and Health and Human Services — expires on March 9, but lawmakers may need more time to piece together legislation for those agencies, the people said.
Congressional leaders are expected to consider a stopgap funding bill to maintain the budgets of those agencies at current spending levels until midMarch, the people added. It would be the fourth such law passed since Sept. 30, when the last fiscal year ended.