Congress has simply 10 days till authorities funding is ready to expire, and lawmakers don’t have a deal to maintain the lights on throughout the holidays.
Members on either side of the aisle count on the federal government will keep open previous the Dec. 20 shutdown deadline. However negotiators are holding their colleagues guessing how that shall be achieved as funding talks enter a essential stretch.
Negotiators have cited ongoing work assessing catastrophe aid as a key consider discussions, as members count on catastrophe help to trip alongside any funding stopgap, also called a unbroken decision (CR), that passes this month.
Home Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) mentioned final week that negotiators have continued to comb via the Biden administration’s “robust” request for greater than $100 billion in catastrophe help to answer hurricanes Helene and Milton.
“I’ve said before, they’re very robust. I think they should be. I think we have real disaster,” he mentioned of the proposals.
However whereas the president’s request contains tens of billions of {dollars} in funding for catastrophe packages just like the Federal Emergency Administration Company, Cole additionally mentioned 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 help 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 mentioned lately whereas discussing the negotiations round catastrophe help and general authorities funding.
Bipartisan requires management to cross laws for catastrophe aid have solely grown since Congress returned from recess in November, not lengthy after the devastation wrought by hurricanes Milton and Helene.
Cole mentioned Congress might additionally handle 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 towards “unpaid” catastrophe help 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 concerning the dimension and scope of the Biden administration’s catastrophe help request. However it alerts Democratic votes seemingly shall be wanted as soon as extra for GOP management to maneuver a closing stopgap funding invoice via the Home to stave off a funding lapse earlier than the following Congress is ushered in.
Different gadgets like IRS funding and {dollars} for the Social Safety Administration might 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 via 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 sooner.
Others are additionally involved about taking on 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 Finances Committee Chair Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) advised reporters final week.
“Whatever we decide, we’re going to rally around it, get it wrapped up,” he added. However he cautioned towards 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 12 months.
With slim management of each congressional chambers and the White Home, Republicans are eyeing particular, however restrictive, budgetary maneuvers that might see them cross sweeping tax coverage adjustments 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 the right way to sort out the nation’s debt restrict subsequent 12 months. And though one other partisan showdown over the nation’s borrowing restrict like what Washington witnessed in a divided Congress final 12 months is much less seemingly with a Republican trifecta, there might be some drama because the nation’s $36 trillion debt stirs concern amongst fiscal hawks.
There’s additionally GOP apprehension about pushing aside funding too late into subsequent 12 months, as the federal government might be compelled 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 mentioned, including he thinks “the sooner we can get a deal done, the better off we’ll be.”
