Congress has simply 10 days till authorities funding is about to expire, and lawmakers don’t have a deal to maintain the lights on throughout the holidays.
Members on each side of the aisle anticipate the federal government will keep open previous the Dec. 20 shutdown deadline. However negotiators are protecting their colleagues guessing how that might be achieved as funding talks enter a essential stretch.
Negotiators have cited ongoing work assessing catastrophe reduction as a key consider discussions, as members anticipate catastrophe assist to journey alongside any funding stopgap, often known as a seamless decision (CR), that passes this month.
Home Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) stated final week that negotiators have continued to comb by the Biden administration’s “robust” request for greater than $100 billion in catastrophe assist to reply to hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“I’ve said before, they’re very robust. I think they should be. I think we have real disaster,” he stated of the proposals.
However whereas the president’s request consists of tens of billions of {dollars} in funding for catastrophe packages just like the Federal Emergency Administration Company, Cole additionally stated he’s not “interested in extra money for programs that are not disaster related, and there’s some of that in the president’s proposal.”
Republicans have singled out funding requests for the departments of State and Training, in addition to the Environmental Safety Company, tucked into the catastrophe funding request.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the highest Democrat on the Home Appropriations Committee, additionally pointed to the dearth of a top-line settlement in catastrophe assist holding up funding talks.
“There’s not been any real hard and fast debates about what’s there, because the issue is, we got to get to a top line, and then we can start to go forward,” she stated lately whereas discussing the negotiations round catastrophe assist and general authorities funding.
Bipartisan requires management to move laws for catastrophe reduction have solely grown since Congress returned from recess in November, not lengthy after the devastation wrought by hurricanes Milton and Helene.
Cole stated Congress may additionally deal with the catastrophe want “as a standalone” however famous that management thinks “it would help putting on the CR.”
His feedback got here a day earlier than the hard-line conservative Home Freedom Caucus got here out in opposition to “unpaid” catastrophe assist laws, urging “not one more cent to the Biden administration.”
The assertion didn’t come as a shock, as members of the caucus had already expressed reservations in regards to the measurement and scope of the Biden administration’s catastrophe assist request. Nevertheless it alerts Democratic votes seemingly might be wanted as soon as extra for GOP management to maneuver a closing stopgap funding invoice by the Home to stave off a funding lapse earlier than the subsequent Congress is ushered in.
Different gadgets like IRS funding and {dollars} for the Social Safety Administration may additionally emerge as areas of focus in spending talks because the stress dials up on lawmakers with little time remaining within the present session.
Lawmakers expect management to land on a stopgap that runs by someday subsequent March, though some Republicans in each chambers have pushed for a CR that ends sooner to push Congress to complete up its funding work quicker.
Others are additionally involved about taking over an excessive amount of of President-elect Trump’s first months in workplace on finalizing fiscal 2025 spending payments.
“My opinion is we should, we should resolve that now, tie a bow on it, not saddle President Trump with it, and certainly don’t distract reconciliation, which is our greatest opportunity to change course on policy, with last fiscal year’s discretionary budget,” Home Funds Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) informed reporters final week.
“Whatever we decide, we’re going to rally around it, get it wrapped up,” he added. However he cautioned in opposition to Congress “dragging all the last year’s problems into the next year, in this new administration and a new Congress.”
Whereas there’s nonetheless little greater than a month earlier than Trump is inaugurated for a second time, congressional Republicans have already been revving up far-reaching plans to advance the incoming president’s tax and spending agenda come subsequent yr.
With slim management of each congressional chambers and the White Home, Republicans are eyeing particular, however restrictive, budgetary maneuvers that might see them move sweeping tax coverage modifications regardless of anticipated Democratic opposition within the Senate, in addition to a border package deal in early 2025.
Lawmakers can even need to deal with tips on how to sort out the nation’s debt restrict subsequent yr. And though one other partisan showdown over the nation’s borrowing restrict like what Washington witnessed in a divided Congress final yr is much less seemingly with a Republican trifecta, there could possibly be some drama because the nation’s $36 trillion debt stirs concern amongst fiscal hawks.
There’s additionally GOP apprehension about laying aside funding too late into subsequent yr, as the federal government could possibly be pressured to implement across-the-board cuts within the spring if Congress falls too far behind in its funding work.
“It needs to be, certainly before April, or we’ll have, across the board, cuts in defense and an increase in non defense, which I don’t think is what the Republican conference wants,” Cole stated, including he thinks “the sooner we can get a deal done, the better off we’ll be.”
