Congress Keeps the Lights On – For Now
The federal government will remain open through at least Dec. 22.
Late last week, the House and Senate passed and President Donald Trump signed a Continuing Resolution (CR) to fully fund government operations for two weeks. The measure passed by a comfortable margin in both houses, by a vote of 235 to 193 in the House, and by 81 to 14 in the Senate.
The short-term nature of the bill was expected. Republican leaders in both Houses had promised they would avoid a shutdown, but also wanted to put off dealing with more divisive issues. The short duration means lawmakers must still pass another CR before Dec. 25 that would fund the government into next year.
Leaders of both parties sat down at the White House last week. “The president had a constructive meeting with congressional leadership and Defense Secretary Mattis,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement after that meeting. “The parties agreed on the need for eliminating the defense sequester to deal with the grave national security threats we face.” The Hill reports Democrats could agree to $54 billion in annual defense spending, as long as it was “matched with an equal increase on [the] nondefense side.”
Another potential issue is that Democrats would like to include a settlement of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) policy in the final spending bill. DACA involves federal policy toward the roughly 800,000 children who were brought to the United States illegally and have been shielded from deportation. Republicans say they would prefer to deal with that issue separately next year.
Meanwhile, lawmakers on a House-Senate conference committee will meet Wednesday to discuss ways to reconcile the slightly different versions of the tax reform bill passed by both houses. Republican leaders are aiming to get a single bill to the president’s desk before Christmas.