WASHINGTON — Congress returns from its long summer recess Monday with just three weeks to hammer out funding and avoid another government shutdown.
Absent appropriations, the U.S. Department of Transportation and most other federal branches would largely shutter operations, as they did for 35 days starting last December.
While Congress and the White House grabbed headlines in August with a two-year budget deal signed by President Donald Trump, the agreement only set overall spending limits and suspended the federal debt ceiling through July 31, 2021, to avoid entanglement with the 2020 election. The deal did not include appropriations for the coming fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1.
The House passed 10 of 12 funding bills before the August break, but will have to revisit those. The agreed spending limits in the budget deal came in $15 billion below the amount assumed when those bills were written.
The Senate, however, is starting from scratch, having failed to move any of its 12 appropriations bills out of committee. Senate leaders indicate that the Appropriations Committee plans to mark up three bills by Thursday, but not including the DOT.
With just 13 working days on the Congressional calendar before the end of September, it will be a tall order to move all dozen appropriations bills through each chamber, and then through conference committees to iron out differences, before a final vote.
A continuing resolution to keep the government funded, perhaps into November or December, is considered likely.
Apparently the House has passed a good share of legislation but the Senate under Mitch “the Grim Reaper” McConnell has the graveyard of dead legislation, no legislation has been passed.
They need to pass a bill that prohibits shutdowns…
may be if they had less recesses all the time they might get some work done always wait to the deadline to get stuff down…..o yea they will have their holiday recess comin up and then election year so they wont want to do anything until after election