WASHINGTON—House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Dec. 17 unveiled a bipartisan bill that would keep the government funded until March 14, punting the issue of permanent funding to the incoming 119th Congress in the early days of President-elect Donald Trump’s second term.
This bill is known as a continuing resolution, or CR. It would keep government funding at current levels, hedging off a government shutdown that would otherwise begin at 12 a.m. ET on Saturday.
The CR also includes a one-year extension of the farm bill that consists of various initiatives, including food nutrition programs in schools, crop insurance, and disaster assistance. The bill comes in at a topline price of $10 billion, below the threshold that some in the industry have requested. It usually gets extended for five years.
The bill also wraps in legislation designed to restrict outgoing investments by U.S. entities into China.
It designates $150 million to allow the president to hire officials in the Department of the Treasury and the Department of Commerce to determine which types of investments should be restricted in the interest of national security and trade competitiveness.
While the bill usually gets bipartisan support, a point of contention surrounding it is the GOP’s desire to strengthen requirements for recipients of food stamps, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Democrats oppose making changes.
The CR includes a measure to transfer control of Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium to the District of Columbia from the federal government as the site could be the new home of the NFL’s Washington Commanders.
It’s unclear whether House leadership will adhere to the 72 hour rule in passing the bill. Under House rules agreed to at the start of the 118th Congress, leadership is supposed to allow lawmakers 72 hours to read legislation before bringing it for a vote.
During a Dec. 17 press conference, Johnson indicated it was his intention to stick to the 72 hour rule.
However, that would mean the House couldn’t take a vote on the package until just hours before the start of a shutdown on Friday. Thus, it’s unclear whether House leadership will ultimately pursue a vote on the package under suspension of the rules, which would require two-thirds support to pass.
Senate Minority Whip John Thune (R-S.D.)—the incoming majority leader—said he believes the Senate may need to work into the weekend to pass the legislation.
“If we don’t get [bill text] today, and they don’t act on it until tomorrow, it pushes us into the later parts of this week, or maybe into the weekend,” Thune told reporters on Tuesday. “But who knows? Maybe the Christmas spirit will kick in.”
Still, that’s an eventuality many on Capitol Hill would prefer to avoid as they prepare for the week-long Christmas recess.
Congress was supposed to enact 12 full-year appropriations bills by Sept. 30, which would fund the federal government for Fiscal Year 2025. However, as has happened every year since 1997, Congress failed to pass them in time and, therefore, enacted a CR.
For some Republicans, the added content in the CR makes it look more like the long-despised end-of-year “omnibus” spending bill, which has historically wrapped all government funding into one large, single package.
“The CR is looking more and more like an omnibus in the sense that we don’t know what’s in it,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) told reporters on Dec. 16. “They need to saddle up and ride and get this thing put together and keep it to the bare minimum, in my opinion.”
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who veers toward the right flank of the House GOP conference, was also critical.
However, Johnson resisted comparisons to the Christmas omnibus during a press conference on Tuesday.
“This is not an omnibus, okay? This is a small CR that we’ve had to add things to that were out of our control,” Johnson said.
Ultimately, its fate will come down to how Democrats cast their ballot: historically, CR bills have won substantially more support from Democrats than Republicans.
However, Democratic leaders—including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.)—will likely take time to review the legislation before making a commitment either way.
Due to the long congressional recess in the final weeks leading up to the 2024 election—including all of October—it was considered unlikely that Congress would have time to pass the 12 required appropriations bills prior to the Dec. 20 deadline.
Many Republicans in Congress told The Epoch Times in September that they wanted to delay the question of appropriations to the 119th Congress—expecting that Republicans would control Congress and the White House, and that this would enable passage of more fiscally conservative spending bills.
Those electoral aims have been fulfilled; Republicans will hold a three-seat majority in both the Senate and House of Representatives in the 119th Congress, along with control of the executive branch through the incoming Trump administration.
Restarting the whole appropriations process will not require exhaustive committee work, as was done before September when House Republicans attempted to pass several of the 12 appropriations bills.
It remains to be seen how the Trump administration will influence the passage of permanent spending bills in March, which—if highly partisan—will likely not receive enough Democratic votes to overcome a filibuster in the Senate.
The Trump administration has proposed using the budget reconciliation process, a limited method of overcoming the filibuster, to enact other policy priorities. This mechanism can be used to pass legislation related to taxing, spending, and the debt.
Additionally, its chartering of the “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE) initiative, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, could influence the composition of the bills.
