Another Partial Federal Shutdown Looms in Three Days

For the second time this year, Congress and the White House are going right up to a deadline for a partial government shutdown. Negotiations have been continuing over a measure that would fund agencies for the remainder of the fiscal year that is now more than two months old, with policy differences over taxes, immigration and several other issues the main hangup. Funding issues were largely resolved in a late-September deal that also temporarily extended spending authority through Friday (December 11). The most likely course at this point seems to be to enact a short-term extension, potentially of only a few days, although the White House has said it would agree only if a complete deal is in sight. Carrying current funding over into early in the new year, which has been done in the past, seems to have little support. Another course that sometimes has been followed has been to allow a shutdown to start, in order to create pressure to finish the job, with the expectation that it would end quickly; commonly those have fallen over a weekend, as would be the case this year. While that is decried as wasteful, it has less practical impact since many government operations are closed during the weekends, and many of those that continue involve safety and health functions that would be excepted from a shutdown. However, a longer shutdown still cannot be ruled out. Agencies updated their shutdown contingency plans ahead of the threatened October 1 funding lapse and would give notices to employees regarding their status just ahead of any shutdown, possibly as late as Friday afternoon.