Congress rushes to reach spending deal as deadline looms
Congressional negotiators are scrambling to reach a deal that would allow the House to vote on several spending bills this week, with just 11 days left to avert a shutdown, according to aides close to the talks.
The last-minute wrangling to bring spending bills to the floor is an attempt to take care of some must-do work heading into next week, when Capitol Hill will be consumed with a likely House floor vote to impeach President Donald Trump.
Leaders of both parties are attempting to finish the long-stalled negotiations early this week, with a number of lingering policy items — including tricky immigration-related provisions — still under discussion.
But there are hopes to vote on at least one package of spending bills, possibly more, before lawmakers start their weekends on Thursday afternoon. That would mark significant progress a full week before the Dec. 20 funding deadline.
Leaders of both parties insist that they won't allow yet another shutdown to happen. The bigger question, instead, is whether Congress can reach a deal to fully fund the government, or be forced into yet another patch.
Democratic leaders have been eager to avoid a third stopgap spending bill, worried about losing votes from frustrated members of their caucus. Both parties also want to avoid missing out on $100 billion in extra spending from this year’s budget deal, which would be essentially voided if an agreement isn’t reached.
Expectations for a sweeping deal had abated somewhat over the weekend, as talks slowed between the two parties on issues like immigrant detention beds as well as a slate of California-related policy issues. Still, negotiators believe they can put bills on the floor of the House this week, though it would be a difficult task in the more slow-moving Senate.
Senior appropriators have long insisted they plan to fully fund the government before Christmas, though many of their colleagues have been skeptical about the odds.
The House is also facing a hectic calendar in the final two weeks of 2019. Democrats are eyeing a vote on a sprawling bill to lower prescription drug prices, as well as Trump’s new North American trade deal and a Pentagon policy bill.
“There are two weeks. That’s a lifetime in appropriations!” House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Nita Lowey (D-N.Y.) quipped last week.
The Senate, meanwhile, would need to get consent from every member to proceed with a massive spending package so quickly. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Monday that he hopes to have at least some of the bills done by the time Congress leaves for the Christmas recess.
"I'm grateful to colleagues on both sides of the aisle for their hard work. I hope this progress continues and we can consider appropriations measures this month," McConnell said.
Reaching a deal this week would be a major achievement for a Congress that has sent zero spending bills to the president's desk, more than two months into the start of the fiscal year.
The House passed a majority of its bills earlier this year, while the Senate passed a package that includes one-third of the bills. But the two sides can't agree on what version of those bills to send to Trump.
Both chambers are far behind on the appropriations process compared to last year, when the federal government was sent sputtering into a month-long shutdown because of disagreement over Trump's border wall. Trump eventually agreed to end the standoff, but later circumvented Congress to secure billions of dollars for his border project anyways.
This year, the wall remains a sticking point, but Republican and Democratic leaders say they anticipate other immigration-related provisions, like the number of detention beds in the Department of Homeland Security, to be a bigger issue.
Caitlin Emma contributed to this report.
