Congress narrowly avoided a government shutdown this past weekend as lawmakers approved a bipartisan Continuing Resolution (CR) that will keep all federal departments and agencies funded through mid-March. The final spending bill (H.R. 10545) cleared the House on a 366-34 vote; the Senate approved the measure by a margin of 85-11.
Action on the CR capped a tumultuous week during which time House GOP leaders were forced to abandon plans to advance a sprawling policy and spending package after President-elect Trump called on rank-and-file Republicans to reject the plan and move a scaled-back version of the bill that also included an increase in the debt limit. Incidentally, a combined CR-debt limit measure was subsequently voted down by the House late last week, briefly raising the prospects of a government shutdown. In the end, a slimmed-down CR - without a debt-limit increase - emerged as the only viable, bipartisan option for resolving the 11th-hour stalemate.
In addition to funding the entirety of the federal government through March 14, the final CR provides $110 billion for disaster recovery and relief efforts in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Western regions of the country. Of the total, the legislation includes nearly $30 billion for FEMA's response, recovery, and mitigation activities related to presidentially declared disasters, as well as billions of dollars for HUD, SBA, the Army Corps, and other federal agencies for various disaster recovery and mitigation purposes. Additionally, H.R. 10545 extends programs in the five-year Farm Bill through next September.
Looking ahead to the 119th Congress, incoming-President Trump and GOP congressional leaders will need to juggle a number of competing priorities early in the new year. Not only will they need to write a new slate of spending bills before mid-March, Republicans have their sights set on moving an ambitious policy agenda that includes, among other things, immigration policy and tax reform.