WASHINGTON – A brand new presidential administration and a brand new crop of lawmakers is simply across the nook in Washington. However earlier than they will flip over, the present Congress has three brief weeks to deal with two must-pass duties: Passing authorities funding to keep away from a shutdown, and approving a protection spending invoice.
The present authorities funding invoice expires on Dec. 20, which suggests the federal authorities might shut down simply in time for the Christmas holidays if lawmakers cannot come to an settlement.
There’s little indication that can occur – as an alternative, the query is whether or not lawmakers will dealer a funding deal or lengthen present funding ranges, and for the way lengthy.
“Letting the federal government shut down simply earlier than Christmas can be asinine, plain and easy, and no person desires that to occur,” Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., mentioned on the Senate flooring earlier than Congress adjourned for Thanksgiving.
This is what to know concerning the essential spending packages Congress will take into account within the ultimate weeks of the 12 months.
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Dodging a authorities shutdown
The federal authorities’s coffers reset yearly on Oct. 1, requiring Congress to move annual laws that funds essential applications. This fall, lawmakers prolonged present funding ranges till Dec. 20 to keep away from a messy funding combat forward of the presidential election.
Now that deadline is quickly approaching, and the 2 events in Congress nonetheless haven’t got an settlement on how a lot they need to spend on authorities applications over the subsequent 12 months.
Leaders of the Home and Senate appropriations committees need to move a funding deal by the top of the 12 months. Republicans who take this view argue it will clear the best way for President-elect Donald Trump to give attention to his agenda in his first 100 days, slightly than coping with final 12 months’s spending battle.
However Home Speaker Mike Johnson has mentioned it’s extra doubtless they’ll move one other funding extension into the “first half” of 2025.
“I believe that will finally be a great transfer as a result of the nation would profit from it as a result of then you definately’d have Republican management and we might have just a little extra say in what these spending payments are,” he told Fox News Sunday in mid-November.
Funding protection
Congress approves a nationwide protection spending invoice yearly that lays out how a lot cash goes to the armed providers.
The GOP-led Home handed a model of this laws in June that was laden with conservative priorities concentrating on Pentagon abortion coverage, local weather change initiatives and extra. Democrats within the Senate wouldn’t comply with it.
The Home and Senate Armed Companies Committees are actually anticipated to launch a compromise invoice quickly that might get help from each events. However they nonetheless need to make a deal on a complete spending quantity that stays inside the bounds of a spending deal brokered in 2023 by former Home Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Joe Biden.
Congress has handed the protection invoice, dubbed the Nationwide Protection Authorization Act, yearly for greater than six a long time.
Pure catastrophe support
Biden requested Congress final month to approve practically $100 billion in emergency funding to assist it reply to a number of pure disasters.
The request included $40 billion for the Federal Emergency Administration Company to supply support within the aftermath of Hurricanes Helene and Milton, which precipitated catastrophic harm in Florida and a number of other different states throughout the Southeast in September and October.
Further funding can be used to answer different emergencies, resembling final 12 months’s devastating wildfires in Maui, tornadoes throughout the Midwest and the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in March.
There’s bipartisan help for added support, particularly from lawmakers from the Southeast that had been hard-hit by hurricanes. Leaders from each events have mentioned they need to move a bundle. Nonetheless, divisions over how much to spend on which applications might make it difficult to approve within the ultimate weeks of the 12 months.
What occurs throughout a authorities shutdown?
Throughout a authorities shutdown, federal workers who’re categorized as “nonessential” are despatched dwelling and paid as soon as the federal government reopens. “Important” employees – these essential to hold essentially the most essential parts of the federal authorities functioning – would hold working and obtain their pay.
Social Safety, Medicare and Medicaid advantages are thought of important and would proceed, although it is likely to be tougher to get by to representatives for help throughout a shutdown. Different key profit applications, resembling army veterans applications and meals applications would additionally proceed.
The U.S. army and federal legislation enforcement businesses together with the FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and jail employees, in addition to the Secret Service, Coast Guard and border safety brokers would additionally hold working.
Nationwide parks and monuments would near the general public, and it might be tougher to get different authorities providers, like help with passports and visas, throughout a closure. Baby care applications like Head Begin can be left with out funding.
Airport safety and air site visitors controllers would hold working, however there could possibly be airline delays as a consequence of absenteeism.
Michael Collins contributed.
( headline and story edited by our employees and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
