A stopgap is needed because as usual Congress has made only limited progress toward enacting the 12 regular appropriations bills. Image: 010110010101101/Shutterstock.com
By: FEDweek StaffCongress is now back in session from its August recess, with the need to enact funding to carry federal agencies past the September 30 end of the current fiscal year among the immediate priorities.
As in most prior years, Congress is looking to enact stopgap funding called a continuing resolution, which generally funding at current levels with some add-ons.
A funding lapse and resulting partial government shutdown – what would be the first since the record-setting one of late 2018-early 2019 – is not expected but complications could arise. For example, the White House’s request for an additional $47 billion for disaster relief, covid response, aid to Ukraine and purchase of monkeypox vaccine already is drawing opposition on both cost and policy grounds. Some Members of Congress almost certainly will add their own requests.
Also to be decided is how long any stopgap would last. It likely would be until mid-November at least, since Congress plans to be in recess again for all of October until the week after the midterm elections. The White House termed its request as providing sufficient funds for its purposes through year’s end.
A stopgap is needed because as usual Congress has made only limited progress toward enacting the 12 regular appropriations bills, with the House having passed six as a package but the Senate none. In recent years the Senate often has not taken up at least some of them at all, instead negotiating directly with the House based on bills produced at the committee level.
Among the House-passed bills is the general government measure, which typically is the vehicle for deciding the following year’s raise. That often is done by default by remaining silent and allowing the President’s recommendation to take effect.
Congress has been following that pattern again this year, clearing the way for President Biden’s recommendation for 4.6 percent. He recently restated that intent and further specified that he would divide it as 4.1 percent across the board with the funds for the other 0.5 percentage point paid out in amounts varying by GS locality area.
That bill also contains a provision that has become a priority for congressional Democrats, to prevent moving competitive service employees involved with policy into the excepted service. President Biden revoked a Trump administration order to do that by creating a new “Schedule F,” but many Republicans have been advocating for reviving it in a future GOP administration.
Language to the same effect, although somewhat different, also is in the Senate version of another high-priority bill, the annual DoD authorization, pending a floor vote there. That bill is considered an annual “must-pass,” although with only three working weeks remaining before the next recess, it is questionable whether it could reach final enactment before then. However, a Senate vote in favor of a bill containing a Schedule F ban would send a message ahead of the elections.
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See also,
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