Forget the massive omnibus spending bill.
Congress is downsizing its budget ambitions and plans to take up several “mini-bus” measures to fund the federal government in 2019, rather than one all-inclusive bill they’ve used for the past few years.
The plan, GOP leaders said, is part of an effort to nudge the dysfunctional spending process in Congress to passing all 12 government spending bills into law separately, which hasn’t happened in decades.
The omnibus became a household word early this year when Congress engaged in a string of partisan shutdown fights over how to fund fiscal 2018.
President Trump in March finally signed a bill to end to the impasse.
It came in the form of a six-month omnibus measure that stuffed almost all discretionary federal spending into one 2,232-page bill.
Trump, facing backlash from fiscal hawks over the size and cost of the legislation, nearly withheld his signature. He announced his support only after warning Congress, “I will never sign a bill like this again.”
So Congress will aim for something smaller this year.
A mini-bus describes a group of several spending measures, but not all of them, included in one bill. Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers are working to combine the 12 spending measures that keep the federal government running into a series that is less bulky than the legislation that President Trump signed in March.
“It sounds like we’ll bundle them, in something like mini-buses,” Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, R-Texas, told the Washington Examiner. “There seems to be a lot of energy and a lot of interest in avoiding an omnibus.”
The approach will make fiscal watchdogs happier because the bills would be smaller and easier to scrutinize than the giant omnibus.
Passing several mini-bus measures would also make it easier for to Congress clear the bills on time even though the appropriations process was significantly delayed by the protracted 2018 spending fight.
This fiscal year ends Sept. 30, just four months from now. Lawmakers don’t believe they can pass individual bills through each chamber by the August recess, which would leave September open for clearing final legislation.
“That would be hard,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala.
Shelby, at a recent committee hearing to advance two appropriations bills, warned against Congress moving another omnibus bill.
“I believe we all agree that is no way to fund the government,” Shelby said. “It’s bad for the agencies, bad for our constituents and it is bad for the country.”
Shelby plans for his committee to advance all 12 spending bills this month.
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the full Senate would begin voting on appropriations bills in June and advocated for the smaller bundling plan.
McConnell has not indicated which bills would be grouped together, but said he has already consulted with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., “about the need to package some of these bills into mini-buses in order to get them across the floor.”
The two parties have already agreed on spending limits for fiscal 2019, which will smooth the way for passage.
McConnell said he’s having “constructive” talks with the Democrats to try to pass spending measures this summer and that the mini-bus plan, he hopes, will bring Congress “as close to a process both sides will be comfortable with in the future.”
The Senate GOP’s staunchest omnibus opponent, Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who filibustered the last omnibus, might even back the plan, his spokesperson hinted.
“Senator Rand Paul is always supportive of more votes, not less,” Paul spokesperson Sergio Gor said. “He believes voting for massive omnibus bills has been a disastrous way of governing.”
