Staff Reports
This week, Washington lawmakers are back at it again, facing a tight deadline to pass funding bills and prevent a government shutdown. If this story sounds like déjà vu, that’s because it is. For the third time in recent months, lawmakers are frantically trying to avoid a partial shutdown, and the clock is ticking.
Last November and January, lawmakers were able to cobble together temporary funding measures to keep the government afloat, but these band-aid solutions fell short of fully funding the U.S. government for the fiscal year. Now, with another deadline approaching, there’s little hope for a grand agreement that would prevent a portion of the federal government from grinding to a halt in early March.
The 2023 omnibus bill, which ran up a $1.7 trillion total and was over 4,000 pages in length, lays out a liberal wish list racked with pork.
A Friday deadline looms for a government shutdown.
SHUTTER DOWN pic.twitter.com/NsFLl6mcYV
— Mark Nantz (@BullseyeBanjo) December 22, 2022
If Congress fails to take action, federal agencies such as the Departments of Agriculture, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Transportation, along with HUD and the FDA, will run out of funding. This time around, funding these entities was supposed to be the easy part, but reality is proving otherwise. The tougher debates revolve around funding for the Department of Defense, DOJ, and Department of Homeland Security.
In a game of political tug-of-war, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is leading tax-and-spend Democrats in the Senate, while Speaker Mike Johnson is rallying conservatives in the House. Schumer is busy demonizing the Republicans as “extreme,” accusing them of wanting to cut essential programs to fund border security and other GOP priorities. Meanwhile, Johnson is pushing back, pointing out that Democrats are sneaking in new spending priorities that were never part of earlier discussions.
In the midst of the chaos, the House Republicans are flexing their procedural muscles, ready to block votes and plunge the House into disarray. With pressure mounting, the Senate and House lawmakers are scurrying back to Washington, but time is running out for them to strike a deal and push the bills through the required processes.
To add fuel to the fire, there’s the looming threat of automatic cuts to defense and nondefense programs if full funding bills aren’t passed by Congress before April 30. As if that’s not enough, President Joe Biden is also struggling to push through a supplemental aid package for Ukraine, further complicating the already messy situation.
As the deadline draws near, the only glimmer of hope for avoiding a shutdown might be another last-minute stopgap funding bill. But Speaker Johnson has hinted that a partial shutdown may be unavoidable and even worth it to make a stand for GOP funding priorities.
Amid this high-stakes political drama, President Biden has finally extended an olive branch to Speaker Johnson and other key leaders by inviting them to the White House for a meeting. But whether this meeting will lead to a breakthrough or just add more fuel to the fire remains to be seen.
