House sends yet another shutdown-averting bill to Biden's desk

The House cleared a stopgap spending bill on Thursday afternoon that officially keeps federal agencies funded through early March, sending the measure to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The chamber approved the shutdown-averting legislation hours after the Senate’s relatively speedy passage, with lawmakers hoping to avoid travel complications caused by an impending snowstorm set to bear down on Washington, D.C. The measure, known as a continuing resolution, passed with mostly Democratic support in a 314-108 vote, a point sure to irritate conservatives who are already fuming over spending.

With parts of the government now funded through March 1 and March 8, leading appropriators have a tremendous amount of work to do in just a matter of weeks. They’re looking to finalize a dozen annual spending bills that Congress has so far failed to pass as House conservatives seek deeper cuts.

If lawmakers fail to clear those bills over the next six weeks, appropriators warn that Congress might have to fall back on yet another a stopgap spending bill, this time through the rest of the fiscal year. That would saddle federal agencies with flat budgets or, worse, steep funding cuts.

“It’s really hard to think that we’re going to get this done by March, but we have to get it done by the 1st of March,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), a senior appropriator. “Otherwise, there will be a CR till the end of the year.”

“Let’s quit playing political games and get the damn thing done,” he added.

Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), another senior appropriator, said Congress has left agencies in “a terrible position, having to spend money exactly like they did the last fiscal year. They can’t get rid of old programs that don’t work. They can’t generate new programs. It’s a terrible way to do business.”

He added: “I think you do start risking a full-year CR if you don’t get this thing done in the foreseeable future.”

The most recent stopgap spending bill is the third passed by Congress — so far — in the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, with House Republican infighting hobbling the appropriations process. Passing all 12 real spending bills, and not short-term patches, will require a massive bipartisan lift that could further land Speaker Mike Johnson in hot water with his right flank.

Earlier this month, Johnson struck a deal on a government funding framework with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, setting defense and nondefense spending levels for the current fiscal year that closely mirror those in the debt limit package negotiated by Biden and former Speaker Kevin McCarthy last summer.

House conservatives, enraged by Johnson’s agreement with Schumer, now say they’re determined to fight for conservative policy wins across a dozen spending bills — on thorny issues like abortion, for example — which have no shot at success in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

The House Freedom Caucus urged Republicans to oppose the stopgap shortly before the passage vote, adding that the measure does nothing to “secure the border.” Earlier Thursday, conservatives unsuccessfully urged Johnson to attach Republican border security legislation as an amendment, which he denied.

Haggling over the broader spending bills can’t begin in earnest, however, until leading appropriators lock down a deal on funding totals for all 12 of them. It’s a critical next step that has consumed the last couple weeks for Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and her House counterpart, Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas).

“This has been dragging on for a long time and I really don’t know why,” said Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the top Republican appropriator in the Senate, who added that she’s “concerned” about the lack of a resolution.

Just that step of the process could take several weeks, a problem for top appropriators who are under an obvious time crunch. Still, many of them expressed optimism on Thursday that it would be possible. Murray said in a floor speech before the Senate passed the stopgap that she has been “working nonstop” with colleagues in both chambers to get things moving “as quickly as we possibly can.”

“Passing this measure will allow us the time we need to hammer out those funding bills for [fiscal 2024], after many months of needless delays,” she added.

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