A second funding deal is already shaping up to face a tougher path for passage. Image: Orhan Cam/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffCongress again narrowly avoided a partial government shutdown with the Senate voting 75 – 22 on Friday to approve a $459 billion spending bill for agencies that were set to run out of funding at midnight.
Congressional negotiators in recent days unveiled a plan for full year funding in the form of two package deals. The House passed the first on Wednesday 339 – 85, with Speaker Mike Johnson. R-La., needing Democrat support to get it through the House under special procedures requiring a two-thirds majority vote despite strong resistance among some GOP lawmakers.
That same faction, the furthest right in the House and some in the Senate, began pushing back on earmarks in the bills, with some demanding that funding be tied to a border deal and include riders on social policy issues, among other priorities. Negotiations in the Senate had also become more fraught, with the race to replace outgoing Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and pressure on his would be successor to support those efforts as well.
The first bill – sent to the White House – provides funding authority through September 30 for agencies funded under the Agriculture, Energy, HUD-Transportation and VA-military construction appropriations bills—which also cover FDA, CFTC, Farm Credit Administration, Army Corps of Engineers and numerous related small agencies and commissions.
“These bills will adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility Act discretionary spending limits and January’s topline spending agreement,” congressional leaders said in a statement announcing the plan for full year funding.
“The remaining six Appropriations bills – Defense, Financial Services and General Government, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS, Legislative Branch, and State and Foreign Operations – will be finalized, voted on, and enacted prior to March 22,” it said.
The second funding deal is already shaping up to face a tougher path for passage as one of the big final opportunities for earmarks, funding-blocking riders, and brinksmanship that have characterized a series of temporary extensions since last fall – and just two weeks to get it done.
Statements on both sides of the aisle last week showed grudging support, at least for passage of the first package this week, but also suggest enough bipartisan consensus to make passage of the second deal a strong possibility if not likely.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Kay Granger, R-Texas, issued a statement last Sunday saying the bills to be voted on “achieve what we set out to do: strategically increase defense spending and make targeted cuts to wasteful non-defense programs.”
“This was a negotiation. Democrats worked under really tough fiscal constraints that I never agreed with […] Let’s get this package signed into law and finish the job on our remaining six bills,” said Senate Appropriations chair Patty Murray, D-Wash.
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