Congress tries to avoid government shutdown in repeat of past spending fights

Lawmakers have returned to Capitol Hill with the House and Senate facing a lengthy to-do list of must-pass spending bills and a short time frame to complete it.

Congress adjourned for its holiday recess last month without making progress on the 12 appropriations bills it must pass to avoid a partial government shutdown later this month. Thanks to an obscure procedural move proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) in November, lawmakers established two spending deadlines by which the must-pass legislation must be finalized, setting the stage for another spending showdown in the coming weeks.

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The House and Senate both must produce their own separate 12 appropriations bills before coming together for negotiations to agree on one finalized budget. This process has largely been stalled over the last several months, as both chambers have failed to advance several appropriations bills through floor votes due to disagreements over total spending amounts.

The House has passed seven of the 12 appropriations bills so far, with five remaining to fund Agriculture; Financial Services; Commerce, Justice, and Science; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; and Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development.

Still, the House, which returned to action on Jan. 2, is further along in progress than the Senate, which has passed only three.

The first batch of appropriations bills are set to expire on Jan. 19, meaning Congress must pass its Agriculture; Military Construction and Veterans Affairs; Transportation, Housing and Urban Development; and Energy and Water legislation to ensure continuing funding for a slew of government departments.

The second deadline falls on Feb. 2 for Congress to pass the remaining appropriations bills for Commerce, Justice, and Science; the Department of Defense; Financial Services and General Government; Homeland Security; Interior and Environment departments; Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education; the Legislative Branch; and State and Foreign Operations.

House Republicans and Senate Democrats have repeatedly butted heads over a total spending number, “top line” in Capitol Hill parlance, even after one was negotiated between GOP leaders and President Joe Biden last summer. That agreement established a $1.59 trillion top line for government spending, which hard-line conservatives previously balked at and instead pushed for a $1.471 trillion level.

However, that stance has shifted after Johnson warned in November that Congress may need to agree on a yearlong continuing resolution if the two parties cannot reach a spending agreement. Members of both parties are largely opposed to a yearlong spending extension, arguing it would hinder agencies from carrying out their obligations.

As a result, conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus later said they would accept the $1.59 trillion budget agreement so long as there are no “side deals” attached.

Still, Rep. Bob Good (R-VA), who has taken over as caucus chairman this month, told the Washington Examiner in December he would use his leadership position to continue pressing GOP leadership for spending cuts and policy reform. Good emphasized that conservatives would continue to pressure Johnson to cut government spending, noting the speaker must make clear “what his commitment is to reduce” costs.

“We also want to continue to push for us to pass our individual spending bills at a level that reduces our spending from last year,” Good said. “That’s the reason why many of us didn’t support the CR because it relieved the pressure of the calendar, [but] we haven’t really advanced our spending bill since that took place.”

Johnson initially proposed an expedited appropriations schedule in late October shortly after securing the speaker’s gavel, which came open when former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was deposed from that role in the chamber. (McCarthy resigned from the House on Dec. 31.)

The original spending proposal sought to pass all the House spending bills before the Nov. 17 government shutdown deadline, in addition to a short-term continuing resolution that would buy lawmakers some time to negotiate a final budget with Senate Democrats.

However, Johnson was forced to pull five of the spending bills from consideration due to disagreement within the GOP conference that threatened the legislation’s passage. Instead, the House passed a temporary stopgap measure that extended the spending deadlines until next year.

That decision left a handful of House conservatives upset with the lack of action.

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“So far [the appropriations process] hasn’t moved forward, and that’s what we’re all very angry about,” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) told the Washington Examiner in December. “[The spending bills] should have been done well before now, and it was extremely disappointing that we didn’t even try to pass at least one of them in December.”

It’s not entirely clear what lawmakers will do if they cannot agree on appropriations bills before the first deadline, risking a partial government shutdown for a handful of agencies if they reject passing another temporary continuing resolution. The time frame gives Congress only eight working days to advance their first batch of appropriations bills before the Jan. 19 deadline.