Lawmakers are scrambling to avert a partial shutdown forward of a federal authorities funding deadline on the finish of the week.
After months of averting shutdowns on the eleventh hour with stopgap payments, Congress lastly passed a package of six bills in early March to fund a slate of presidency businesses for the remainder of the fiscal 12 months – however the work isn’t over but.
A variety of key authorities operations nonetheless should be funded by the top of the day on Friday, March 22, together with the departments of Protection, Homeland Safety, Labor, Well being and Human Providers, Schooling, State, and the legislative department.
The Division of Homeland Safety has confirmed to be a very thorny situation within the funding battle amid partisan disagreements over border coverage.
The present fiscal 12 months started greater than 5 months in the past on October 1, 2023. Since then, lawmakers have confronted a collection of fiscal cliffs because of funding deadlines created by short-term extensions. Now, Congress might be on the verge of lastly finishing the annual appropriations course of.
There are potential landmines forward, nonetheless. Within the Senate, lawmakers might want to attain a time settlement to move the laws earlier than Friday’s shutdown deadline. The objection of anyone senator may sluggish the method down and threaten to take lawmakers proper as much as, or previous, the deadline.
Within the Home, Speaker Mike Johnson should navigate a particularly slim majority and pushback from his proper flank. Hardline conservatives have expressed anger over Johnson’s dealing with of the federal government spending battle – and the speaker needed to rely on both Republican and Democratic votes to move the six-bill funding package deal earlier this month.
That package deal, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden, included funding for the departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, Veterans Affairs, Power, Inside, Transportation, Housing and City Growth, in addition to the Meals and Drug Administration, navy building and different federal packages.
Johnson was elected speaker final 12 months after conservatives compelled former Speaker Kevin McCarthy from his management publish, elevating questions over whether or not Johnson may face the same risk to his speakership amid backlash from the far-right wing of his convention.
McCarthy’s historic and unprecedented ouster plunged Home Republicans right into a weeks-long interval of intense turmoil as they struggled to elect a successor, and lots of Republicans don’t need to see that state of affairs play out a second time.