House rushing to approve appropriations bills to prevent CR and shutdown.
House Faces Uphill Battle in Appropriations Fight with Senate
As the House gears up for an appropriations fight with the Senate, the likelihood of the two chambers agreeing on spending levels for the 12 appropriations bills by the Sep. 30 deadline is slim.
This means a continuing resolution — a short-term stop-gap measure that extends government funding at the prior year’s rate — is likely to happen to give Congress more time to pass the 12 appropriations bills.
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The House only has a total of 24 days in session between now and Sep. 30, when government funding runs out. They also only have 12 days in session before Sep. 1. So, realistically, they would have to pass a continuing resolution in order to give appropriators more time to work on the 12 appropriations bills.
But members of the Republican Conference don’t want to fall back on a continuing resolution, so the plan is to try and pass the 12 appropriations bills off the House floor with enough time to negotiate with the Senate before the Sep. 30 deadline.
“The speaker doesn’t have a desire to go to a CR, and it’s why we’ve tried to move these appropriations bills through the process,” Rep. Garret Graves (R-LA), said. “The speaker is trying to reverse that trend of increasingly relying upon CRs, going to regular order, and allowing the Appropriations Committee in the House to work as well. And so that’s what we’re trying to do.”
But because House Republicans have pledged to mark up the spending bills below the caps set in the debt ceiling bill in an effort to appease the fringe members of the Republican Conference, this sets up a fight with the Senate.
When the House went on recess on June 23, seven appropriations bills had been marked up. Five were below fiscal year 2022 levels, and two were below fiscal year 2019 levels — a big ask of some far-right members.
Senate appropriators have balked at these numbers and marked up their spending bills at the caps set in the debt ceiling bill. But the House is hoping to pass its bills off the floor soon when members get back from recess in order to give them the upper hand in negotiations and have the opportunity to avoid a continuing resolution.
“Obviously, making sure that we stay on schedule to get the bills done, don’t put ourselves into a situation where we take too much time and aren’t able to do a negotiation,” Graves said. “I mean, that doesn’t play into our hands very well, and it ends up pushing you into CR path, where I don’t think we really want to be.”
This determination to pass 12 appropriations bills this year is different than what has occurred in years prior and makes a shutdown more likely, especially in a divided government.
In recent years, Congress has passed a continuing resolution, then waited until around Christmas time to put all the appropriations into one bill known as an omnibus package and passed that. It’s an easier method as opposed to having to vote on 12 individual government funding bills.
But, this year, this is not an option, as House Republicans have made clear they will not support an omnibus package.
“It’s always been a goal to pass 12 appropriation bills,” Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) said. “We are not going to support an omnibus. We are not supporting that. So the Senate better wise up and get right because it’s a new day here on Capitol Hill.”
Winning over far-right members with any compromise on the 12 appropriations bills with the Democrat-controlled Senate is going to be a tough ask. The Senate likely won’t want to go for spending levels below the caps set in the debt ceiling bills, let alone go for pre-pandemic spending levels.
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Even with this fact, members of the House Freedom Caucus aren’t budging, making it a point to say they won’t support appropriations bills that aren’t at or below fiscal year 2022 levels. Though there is recognition that they will have to work with the Senate, just now isn’t the time, and they’ll cross that bridge when it gets there.
“There will come a time when we will have to compromise with the Senate,” said Rep. Ben Cline (R-VA), a member of the Freedom Caucus. “This happens every year. Right now is not the time for the compromise. Right now is the time to find where the House majority can come together. And we come together around conservative bills and conservative priorities.”
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