Congress is barreling toward a rare weekend session as lawmakers race to wrap up a sweeping agreement to fund the government and provide badly needed coronavirus relief.
Leadership is homing in on a deal that would attach roughly $900 billion in coronavirus relief to a $1.4 trillion bill to fund the government until Oct. 1, 2021, in what is the last major piece of legislation Congress needs to pass before it wraps up its work for the year.
But lawmakers appear poised to drive over Friday night’s funding cliff, when the government will shut down at least temporarily without new legislation. Even if talks wrap by Friday night it’s expected to take days for Congress to pass it. Continue reading.
A top Senate Republican on Wednesday said Congress will likely need a stopgap bill amid a myriad of last-minute snags that are threatening quick passage of a mammoth spending bill to fund the government.
Congress has until Dec. 11 to pass an omnibus, which would wrap all 12 fiscal 2021 bills into one, but Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) says he doesn’t think negotiators will make their deadline.
Shelby said Congress will need to make a decision on whether it needs a continuing resolution (CR) by Dec. 9, so that they can pass it by Dec. 11. He added that a stopgap was “where we’re headed at the moment.” Continue reading.
Schumer already suggesting Trump may “want to shut down the government”
Congress could navigate a shutdown and a presidential impeachment inquiry if lawmakers and the Trump administration can’t reach an agreement on government funding during the next three weeks.
The two events haven’t overlapped before in the nation’s history. If that happens next month, however, roughly 2 million federal workers would get hit in their wallets as the holiday season begins, including staffers working on the impeachment proceedings.
Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer on Tuesday preemptively blamed President Donald Trump.
Republican lawmakers are pushing back on a new White House plan that calls for a vote on raising the debt ceiling before August and then revisiting spending talks in the fall.
GOP senators say there’s little desire in their conference to vote on a standalone proposal to increase the nation’s debt limit, something that’s broadly unpopular with the base.
Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), an adviser to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), said Republican leaders would have a tough time passing such a measure if it’s not attached to a broader spending deal.
The following article by Melanie Zanona and Jordain Carney was posted on the Hill website December 20, 2017:
Credit: Alex Edelman/picture-alliance /dpa/AP
House Republican leaders are moving ahead with a stopgap spending bill to keep the government open for a few more weeks, even as they struggled on Wednesday to secure the necessary GOP votes for the plan.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus and the House Armed Services Committee huddled separately with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) late Wednesday night to voice opposition to leadership’s plan to avoid a government shutdown, which will take place Friday at midnight if Congress doesn’t intervene.
In an encouraging sign for Ryan and his top lieutenants, Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) said several members of his group flipped from “no” to “yes” after striking a deal with leadership on a temporary reauthorization of a surveillance program that is also included in the tentative spending patch.
But defense hawks were still unhappy that the continuing resolution (CR) won’t include a full year of funding for defense, though it’s unclear if there will be enough opposition to sink the bill.
“I think there are a lot of people who are going to spend their time tonight really thinking about whether or not this is the hill we’re going to die on,” Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla), a member of Armed Services Committee, said coming out of Ryan’s office. “We just had this great moment on tax reform.”
“I think they’re going to get the votes,” he added.
The following article by Tom Jawetz, Sam Berger and Miguel Rodriguez was posted on the Center for American Progress website December 6, 2017:
U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, November 2017. Credit: AP/Lee Jin-man, Pool
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 2, Senate leadership rammed through its tax bill, the final version of which had been drafted just a few hours earlier, on a party-line vote. The bill was a plutocrat’s dream: massive tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations paid for by increases in middle-class taxes and cuts to middle-class health care. But now, concerned about the backlash from his core supporters—who will bear the brunt of these toxic changes—President Donald Trump may be looking to win back favor by breaking his promise to Dreamers and shutting down the government.
The tax bill funds giveaways to donors by raising taxes on the middle class
The following article by Josh Dawsey, Sean Sullivan and Ed O’Keefe was posted on the Washington Post website November 30, 2017:
President Trump walks to board Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Nov. 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
President Trump has told confidants that a government shutdown could be good for him politically and is focusing on his hard-line immigration stance as a way to win back supporters unhappy with his outreach to Democrats this fall, according to people who have spoken with him recently.
Over the past 10 days, the president has also told advisers that it is important that he is seen as tough on immigration and getting money for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, according to two people who have spoken with him. He has asked friends about how a shutdown would affect him politically and has told several people he would put the blame on Democrats. Continue reading “Trump tells confidants that a government shutdown might be good for him”
Schumer already suggesting Trump may “want to shut down the government”
