Congress left Washington this week without any plan to avoid a government shutdown after Dec. 21, and doesn’t seem to be in any rush to return and sort out the mess.
“No decision has been made yet as to a path forward,” a top aide on the House Appropriations Committee told the Washington Examiner Friday. “Everything is under negotiation.”
Without a funding deal by next Friday, several agencies — including the Department of Homeland Security — won’t have any funding authorized by Congress. But the House left town Thursday and is tentatively scheduled to remain out of session until Wednesday, just two days before the deadline.
The Senate also isn’t in a rush to find an answer. Senators return Monday but are slated to take up criminal justice reform legislation, not spending.
Most of the government’s fiscal 2019 spending, including the Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services and Education departments, are already signed into law.
The remaining measures that expire Friday are caught in a fight over funding for the southern border wall. President Trump wants $5 billion for the wall as part of the DHS funding bill to stop the influx of illegal immigrants, including thousands who traveled to the border as part of several caravans from Central America.
In a public spat with Democrats this week, Trump said he is “proud to shut down the government for border security” if Democrats refuse his demand.
That threw the problem back to Congress, which has yet to find any solution to the fight so far.
“There are a lot of proposals flying around,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby, R-Ala. “I haven’t given up yet.”
Pelosi, who is set to become House speaker in January, said talks are ongoing to extend the temporary spending bill into next year in a measure called a continuing resolution, or CR. It would last until September 2019, the end of the next fiscal year.
“What I’m hearing on the Hill is that we might be more likely to have a CR for all seven bills, until the end of September,” Pelosi said. “But again, that changes. It goes back and forth.”
Republicans have hesitated in part because the CR wouldn’t include any new wall funding, and House Republicans have been debating a plan to pass a fiscal 2019 Homeland Security spending measure that includes Trump’s $5 billion. That bill passed the House Appropriations Committee in July, but then stalled.
One Republican aide told the Washington Examiner that Republicans support Trump’s border wall. Still, it’s not clear Republicans, who will be the minority House party next year, have the votes needed to pass it.
Pelosi dared them to attempt it.
“They do not have the votes to pass the president’s proposal, $5 billion, whatever it is, for the wall,” Pelosi claimed this week. “Nothing is going to change in that regard. I don’t know why we just don’t proceed to keep government open so that people can be home for the holidays and enjoying all of that.”
Other Republicans have suggested the House could collect the votes to pass the wall funding in a Homeland Security spending bill. If the House was able to pull it off, Senate Democrats would presumably be under more pressure to negotiate wall funding out of fear of being blamed for a shutdown if they filibustered the House-passed bill when it reached the Senate.
While some Republicans are not certain it would pass the House, others are more confident the votes are there and want the GOP to use its final days in the majority to try to get more funding for the wall.
“We should get this remedied,” said Deputy Majority Whip Patrick McHenry, R-N.C., a chief vote-counter.
But the House has not yet scheduled a vote on the Homeland Security spending measure. And as of Friday, it was anyone’s guess as to how next week would turn out.
“Hopefully reasonable people here in the House and the Senate on the Republican side will say we need to finish this,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the No. 4 Senate Democrat. “Their other options is to let Trump get his way and have a government shut down, which will hurt people, and Nancy Pelosi will come in as speaker and pass a clean CR.”
