WASHINGTON — As Congress returns this week for one last burst of activity before it wraps up the session, it faces a key deadline of Dec. 20 to avert a government shutdown.
Democrats and Republicans appear resigned to passing a continuing resolution, or CR, that would temporarily fund the government into early 2025 — most likely March — as they run out of time to strike a full funding deal this year. The two parties haven’t even agreed on an overall spending level for the new fiscal year, let alone how to allocate the money across parts of the government.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., alluded to the inevitability of a short-term bill Monday, saying, “We need to keep divisive and unnecessary provisions out of any government funding extension, or else it will get harder to pass a CR in time.”
For Republicans, that is a double-edged sword.
The upside for Republicans in punting the deadline is that they would have more leverage to shape government funding in the new year, with President-elect Donald Trump returning to the White House and the GOP taking control of the Senate and maintaining a narrow House majority.
The big downside is it would create a critical deadline early in the Trump presidency, potentially taking valuable time away from confirming his nominees through the Senate and from the big party-line bill that Republicans are looking at to extend his tax cuts and advance his immigration and border security agenda.
“We’ve got to do a lot of things at the same time,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said of the first 100 days of Trump’s second term. “We’re going to be walking and chewing gum.”
Some Republicans would have preferred not to get bogged down with a funding deadline early in the new Trump presidency.
“There are a lot of things I would prefer. But realistically, we’re not going to put together a budget between now and Christmas. It’s not going to happen,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told NBC News. “I expect us to have a CR probably through the middle of March. I expect that CR to be pretty thin. »
Kennedy added that Congress is likely to attach « $30 [billion] to $40 billion of disaster relief » to the CR, including funding for states hit by hurricanes this year. « It won’t be enough, but it’ll be enough to get a start, » he said.
Funding the government is usually a messy process that requires bipartisan support, as the bills are subject to the Senate’s 60-vote threshold. Democrats have significant power to shape the legislation regardless of the deadline; they hold the majority now, and beginning next year, Republicans will have 53 senators, far short of the 60 needed to control the process themselves.
Another dynamic is that passing another massive Christmastime funding package would be a nonstarter for many House Republicans, and it could imperil House Speaker Mike Johnson’s bid to get re-elected to the position on Jan. 3, particularly with the already slim GOP majority shrinking further.
Another drawn-out speaker fight could also complicate Trump’s presidency, albeit in different ways.
Johnson’s office had no comment on the length of a CR, saying it hasn’t been settled yet.
Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, which writes funding bills, said there’s little time.
“Once they decide what they’re going to do — if they’re going to try to get any of these appropriation bills done before or whether they’re going to do a CR for all of them until March — I mean, that’s the real debate. We can’t get all of them done, » he said. « We could probably negotiate if we got a top-line number. We could probably negotiate several, maybe seven or eight, of the bills and get them done by the 20th, but would have to get that number fairly soon.
“So my guess is — and it’s just strictly my guess — is that we’ll do a CR for everybody until end of March, » he said.
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