A Cold War: The Case for a Short-Term Government Financing Deal in the Prevalence of the December 16 Closure Event
The government funding standoff gripping Washington ahead of Friday’s shutdown deadline is one of the first indicators of the coming shift in power dynamics that will return the capital to a governing cold war between congressional Republicans and a Democratic White House.
If lawmakers cannot agree on a deal, they will face the possibility of either passing a short-term spending bill to carry the debate into the new Congress or a longer-term continuing resolution that would extend current spending levels.
When Republicans gained control of the House and Democrats held on to the Senate last month, it was seen as an early sign of paralysis in government because neither side had the power to fully deliver on their campaign promises.
First, the government runs out of authority to spend money on Friday, December 16. The government will be shut down if the Senate and House do not act.
In a sign of rising political pressure over the spending clash, a group of Republican senators wrote to GOP leader Mitch McConnell last week, laying out their strategy and urging him to block a big spending bill and to agree to a short-term funding package to keep the government open for a few weeks.
There is one school of thought that the passage of a long-term funding mechanism might actually give House GOP leaders a break since a short-term deal would raise the possibility that one of the first acts of a new majority would be to trigger a government shutdown – a state of affairs that has often been politically damaging to the reputation of the party saddled with the blame. Kevin McCarthy is under intense pressure from the most radical members of his conference as he attempts to get the votes needed to become speaker. He has little political leeway and has therefore been heaping public pressure on Senate Republicans to thwart Biden’s hopes of one more spending package, saying on Fox News earlier this month that once Republicans have the gavel in the House, “We would be stronger in every negotiation.”
McConnell’s life could be made more complicated next year, since the GOP House could make him try to manage his party in the Senate, thanks to his comments about how he plans to preside over a confrontation with the White House.
But a senior Biden administration official warned last week that even a funding deal that lasted a year would have “disastrous” consequences for key programs.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. John Blinken, and Sen. Mark Levinson: a new congressional spending package to kickstart the war in Ukraine
And on Sunday, Sen. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats, implied that Republicans were trying to jam Democrats at the end of this year to kickstart their effort in the new GOP House to slash spending on vital social programs.
“Republicans see it as an opportunity to hold us hostage and get demands that, under normal circumstances, they would not,” Sanders said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
They want to cut Medicare, and they want to cut Medicaid, and they have been clear about it, according to Dana Bash.
Biden sent Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin up to Capitol Hill last week to brief senators on the war in Ukraine. But in a sign of the consuming nature of the spending showdown, Republicans emerged from the meeting complaining that the two secretaries spent time lobbying for an omnibus spending bill over a continuing resolution.
“It was a waste of their time. John Kennedy told reporters that it was a waste of time. He said Chuck Schumer had asked why the new spending bill was necessary. I knew that when Chuck said it. Kennedy said the exercise was just a political one.
South Dakota’s second-ranking Senate Republican told reporters last week that they may be singing to each other during the holiday season.
The National Defense Authorization Act: An End to End Game for the House and Senate Amidst the Weekend Workweek Sacrife, and it Will Not Pass Senate CR
Lawmakers face a Friday at midnight deadline when government funding is set to expire – and the House and Senate will likely have to pass a short-term extension to avert a shutdown at the end of the week, which would give negotiators more time to try to secure a broader full-year funding deal.
The National Defense Authorization Act, the massive annual must-pass defense policy bill, is one of the major legislative items that lawmakers are trying to finish by the end of the year. The Senate is expected to vote this week on the National Defense Authorization Act, which is expected to be approved with bipartisan support.
The approaching deadline had members of Congress and their staffers from both parties, as well as Biden administration officials, continuing to slog through negotiations over the weekend to try to get to an agreement on a spending package.
“This is the time of the year when there’s no weekends for folks who work on appropriations,” one administration official closely involved in the talks told CNN.
Congressional aides acknowledged to CNN that the weekend talks went better than days prior, which is why Democrats have announced they will not introduce their own Democratic-only omnibus plan on Monday. Republicans on Capitol Hill had been reading a threat for Democrats to introduce their own bills as a messaging exercise that would only further divide negotiators, and by avoiding that messaging exercise, Republicans see a sign that Democrats are serious about trying to get to yes.
The impasse over a broader funding deal is likely to force both sides to agree to pass a short-term funding extension – known as a continuing resolution, or CR – before the fast-approaching Friday deadline on Friday.
Referring to Democratic-passed legislation that Republicans have criticized, Leahy said, “Those bills were meant to get us out of the pandemic, get the nation healthy, and get our economy back on track, and I believe they are accomplishing that goal. They were not meant to fund the basic functions of the American government in fiscal year 2023.”
If a broader bipartisan deal is made, it would be able to pass both chambers. A deal would be expected to have the votes in the House, but it is likely to take some Republicans breaking with McCarthy to get there. Because the bill is not going to be approved with the help of some liberals in the House, it is likely that the Senate won’t be able to vote on it.
Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the support of many of the most conservative Freedom Caucus Republicans, and so he is encouraged to take more concrete stands against spending. Finding a funding agreement that can pass through the House and the Senate and get President Joe Biden’s signature gets much more difficult starting January 3.
In his floor remarks on Thursday, the Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee outlined the argument for his party. Republicans, Leahy said, are “demanding steep cuts to programs the American people rely on.”
If both sides can’t reach an agreement on a long-term package, Democrats won’t agree to a stopgap bill until the new Congress is in session.
The Omnibus for the Deep-Inequality Funding of the U.S. Government is $16 billion$ Better than $26 billion
It is the most productive time of year on Capitol Hill – after the election and before Republicans take over the House of Representatives – when the current Congress tries to cram some of its most vital work into a few short weeks.
On January 3, the newly elected Congress will take the oath of office. Democrats will have a majority in the Senate, but Republicans will be in charge of the House. Everything resets in the new Congress, and lawmakers will have to start from scratch on anything they don’t finish up this month.
Lawmakers are likely to roll all of the spending bills for the massive federal government into a single bill that could exceed 1.5 trillion dollars, instead of passing a dozen funding bills.
The problem is that they’re still negotiating, and Republicans and Democrats in the Senate have not reached an agreement on how much the government can spend, much less the specifics. They’re still $26 billion apart, according to Republican Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama. The most likely current scenario is the House and Senate each pass short-term, one-week funding bills to keep the lights on while they continue to hash out the larger funding bill.
In addition to writing checks, Congress authorizes government activity through policy bills, including the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes $858 billion in annual defense spending.
The Senate committee said in a news release that “the omnibus includes $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs, including $118.7 billion – a 22 percent increase – for VA medical care, and $858 billion in defense funding. The bill invests significant money in our communities, funds critical programs for America’s middle class families and cares for our veterans, as well as invests in our national security.
The bill is expected to be taken up by senators this week. It should get bipartisan support, but it will eat up valuable time in the Senate floor, where Democrats want to push through judicial nominees. More information about the bill can be found here.
The Mueller Investigation into the Trump Taxes: How a New Attorney General Could Take Charge of the Under-Regime Insurrection
Republicans intend to use the nation’s borrowing limit as a bargaining tool in order to have spending cuts next year. The current debt ceiling is nearing it’s limit, which will make it a fight to raise it early on.
How much more do the government spend than they take in? The government is running a deficit of $336 billion in the fiscal year starting in October, which is 20 billion less than it had in the same period a year ago.
Republicans will shut down the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, insurrection when they take control in January. GOP lawmakers plan to flip the script and investigate the committee’s activity.
The report of the committee featuring Democrats and two anti-Trump Republicans will be released on December 21. Also look for the committee to recommend the Department of Justice prosecute Trump or members of his inner circle.
Jack Smith, the newly appointed special counsel, has been busy ramping up a couple of criminal probes into the former president, which could explode into public view if charges are ultimately brought. You can read the latest work by Smith.
When Republicans take control of the House they will probably not have the time to conduct a thorough review of the Trump tax situation.
The New York Times published some of President Donald Trump’s tax information, so Democrats could move to make it public as well. Since Democrats obtained the returns in order to scrutinize the IRS audit policy, releasing the returns may have a political cost. Read more about Trump’s taxes.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/12/politics/congress-deadlines-funding-what-matters/index.html
What’s in the House? The 2020 Insurrection-Preserving Supermajority Democrat Spectacular Spending Package
It’s a bipartisan idea to make some major clarifications to election law and cut down on the possibility of another January 6, 2021. Read here about what’s in the bill, which is specifically designed to guard against Insurrection 2.0.
There are competing versions in both the House and Senate, which may make it difficult to pass the proposal. The Senate version, in particular, has bipartisan support. Republicans in the House may not be interested in legislation after they take control.
If the Electoral Count Act can pass, it could be slipped into that massive spending bill. This could be a good example of lawmakers working together, as it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
In a sign of progress, top negotiators announced Tuesday evening that an agreement had been reached for a framework that puts lawmakers on track to complete a sweeping full-year government funding package.
The announcement did not delve into specific details of what the agreement encompasses, but marks a major breakthrough as lawmakers work to fund the government before the end of the year.
There is some opposition to this larger spending plan, though. For example, House GOP Leader Kevin McCarthy of California earlier this week slammed Democrats for trying to rush the package through Congress.
The government funding fight is expected to go into next year. It would invite more negotiating obstruction. October 1 was when the fiscal year began. This job should be done before Christmas.
He said he believed that people would want to fund the government until the government had a longer resolution in place.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is hopeful that talks on a year-long government funding bill will lead to a deal.
A group of Democratic lawmakers and progressive advocates are pushing hard to restore at least part of the enhanced child tax credit that stabilized many families’ finances in 2021.
A bipartisan proposal for a full-year government funding package with new spending levels under the stopgap measure in the House of Delegates
Wyden said on Tuesday that he plans to fight with every ounce of his strength over the issue.
“The number one interest of companies today is for trained and educated workers. You make investments like the Child Tax Credit and you give the employers the chance to get more of what they want. I support the Child Tax Credit and the Research and Development Credit very much.
“There’s a lot of expiring tax policies that need to be extended which enjoys bipartisan support, but as is usually the case there’s a kickback to be paid when it comes to renewing tax policy,” said the senator on Tuesday. As of right now, I don’t see it.”
Congress will have more time to wrap up a full-year government funding deal with new spending levels under the stopgap measure.
The top line is around 1.7 trillion, but no information was given. The exact allocation to different government agencies is still being negotiated.
A bipartisan agreement for a full-year government funding deal is difficult to cobble together due to disagreements between the two parties over how much money should be spent on domestic priorities.
A massive full-year budget proposal for the upcoming year that Congress can pass through it without giving anyone an opportunity to read it or see it
“They want to raise the spending, bring more inflation, create more ‘wokeism’ in the legislation they want to pass through it and not even give members an opportunity to read it or see it,” he said.
Each year, the president submits a budget with spending goals for the upcoming year. Congress then works to hash out what items will stay and what will go.
Lawmakers early Tuesday unveiled legislative text of a massive full-year government funding bill that Congress hopes to pass to avert a shutdown at the end of the week.
Senate leaders are attempting to pass the bill by Thursday in order to get it to the House by Friday, where it will be approved and then to the president for his signature.
Other provisions in the bill, according to Senate sources, include an overhaul of the 1887 Electoral Count Act and the Secure Act 2.0, a package aimed at making it easier to save for retirement. The bill also includes a measure to ban TikTok from federal devices.
But several key measures were not included in the plan. The Safe Banking Act, which was intended to allow cannabis companies to bank their cash reserves, was not included in the final bill, according to sources.
On the location of the FBI’s headquarters in Maryland and the possibility of a separate GSS-DC consultation with the House and Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer
The location of the FBI’s new headquarters was a point of contention as members of the House tried to bring the agency to the state of Maryland. A Senate Democratic aide said that there was a deal worked on by the Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that would require the General Services Administration to conduct seperate and detailed consultations with representatives from Maryland and Virginia.