The Road Ahead: Congress Stares Down Its To-Do List

Lawmakers in the Senate will return to Washington from a three-week break on Wednesday; their House counterparts return next week. Awaiting members is a lengthy to-do list for the coming months, with several key deadlines rapidly approaching.

First, Republicans will have to work alongside Democrats in both chambers to pass a spending bill.

Congress managed to do the bare minimum—keeping the government open a couple more weeks before taking their Christmas break—in December. But that short-term funding bill is set to expire January 19.

Defense spending will be in the spotlight this time around: Republicans hope to pass a hefty military spending increase, which would burst Budget Control Act spending caps. Democrats, meanwhile, are expected to push for a corresponding increase in non-defense discretionary spending during negotiations. One House GOP aide suggests that may be a sticking point.

“The Democrats will probably want a dollar-for-dollar increase at parity with defense spending, but I do not expect the Republicans to agree to that,” he told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

The spending bill could also include reauthorizations for several government programs, such as a key foreign intelligence surveillance program that will expire on January 19, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, which provides health insurance for about 9 million kids and has gone without federal funding since lawmakers allowed it to expire in October.

Oh, and there’s always that pesky debt ceiling: According to the CBO, Congress will have to raise it by early spring in order to continue financing government operations.

Congress may also take another shot at passing a natural disaster relief package in the new year after efforts to pass $81 billion to repair damage from last year’s hurricanes (and ongoing wildfires in California) stalled in the Senate in December.

Adding to the list, lawmakers will also have to grapple with a heated, years-long immigration debate if congressional leaders hope to pass a bipartisan Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) replacement before the program, which granted residency and work permits to nearly 1 million undocumented immigrants, expires on March 5.

Democrats plan to push for a DACA replacement as part of the spending bill, but Democratic lawmakers have folded on including the DACA fix in must-pass funding bills three times since Trump announced he would allow it to sunset: First in a short-term funding bill last September, then in the December 8 spending bill, and finally in the four-week December 22 spending package. Who knows how hard they’ll push this time around?

Senate Republican leaders have signaled their hope to pass a DACA fix sometime in January, but conservative members may push back on the effort, which would mean needing Democratic support.

Democrats indicate they may be open to supporting additional Republican-backed border security measures in order to pass permanent protections afforded to DACA recipients in the Dream Act—but they continue to oppose funds for Trump’s proposed border wall.

Trump, meanwhile, said in a tweet last week that he expects wall funding alongside any DACA replacement.

“The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration,” he said.

White House officials will meet with Paul Ryan, Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell, and Chuck Schumer on Wednesday to start on the list with a discussion of the government funding bill.*