Lawmakers are almost certain to rely on a stopgap spending bill to continue government operations at the current budget levels past Sept. 30, when the fiscal year ends. No one expects the House, Senate and White House to agree on 12 annual spending bills in the next few weeks, especially with the House already out of session past Labor Day.
Congress could “with low drama” agree to a resolution avoiding a government shutdown, Politico suggested Monday in its Inside Congress newsletter.
“I don’t think there’ll be a problem” getting conservative support for a short-term continuing resolution,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said, according to Politico. “Nobody wants a government shutdown during an election cycle.”
But some will want that stopgap to stretch past the election and some into the new calendar year. The current fiscal year’s spending wasn’t agreed to until March, halfway through the fiscal year.
What’s Up in the House
The House Appropriations Committee has advanced all 12 annual spending bills, as outlined in a press release from the committee’s Republicans.
The military construction and Veterans Affairs spending bill passed the full House, along with a few other appropriations bills. But the trickier spending bills, including defense, are stuck for now, given the narrow Republican majority, conservative policy riders and questions over the overall defense and non-defense spending levels.
The defense appropriations “bill procures where we can, trains where we must and invests in capability that will make our adversaries wake up every day and say, ‘Today is not the day to provoke the United States,’” Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chair Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) said of the defense spending bill that has not yet come before the full House.
Amid uncertainty over the fate of other spending bills, House Republican leaders started the traditional August recess almost two weeks early.
What’s Up in the Senate
The Senate Appropriations Committee has passed several spending bills, including the military construction and Veterans Affairs bill, according to committee documents.
The defense appropriations bill is one of several set for committee approval Thursday, according to a committee notice. The hearing, which will likely be perfunctory to approve a pre-drafted bill, will be livestreamed.
The Senate’s high-level defense spending amount is higher than the one the House used to draft its spending bill, because the House stuck closer to the spending agreements in last year’s bipartisan budget caps. The Senate’s proposed higher defense spending levels got a boost this week from the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, which recommended higher defense spending this year and in years to come, as On Base reported.
The Coming Weeks
It’s casually referred to as “August recess” and can seem like a break, but most legislators actually spend several weeks traveling their districts and states talking with constituents. Those who represent defense communities often visit nearby installations, military families and veterans groups.
Those lawmakers hear from constituents about what’s important to them, including funding for such issues as the Defense Community Infrastructure Program, which is a budget line Congress is considering reducing from the current spending year’s levels.
Navy photo of Chair Calvert by Neil Mabini
