Government Funding?
Government funding runs out on December 20th and last Sunday, Speaker Johnson (R-LA) said that the House will pass another temporary spending bill before the end of the year to extend current levels of government funding into March of next year. This is the same approach Republicans took going into 2017. The GOP spent the first four months of that year hashing out an agreement on a spending package. Some in the party would prefer to enact a series of “minibus” spending measures to fund the government through September 2025 (the end of the FY 2025 fiscal year), so that the party can focus on other priorities during the first months of the new Congress and administration. This strategy dispute will not be resolved until after the Thanksgiving recess. Before this year’s damaging hurricane season, the Biden administration was waiting on a languishing request for $23.5 billion in extra disaster funds, which officials originally requested in October 2023. There’s bipartisan interest in disaster-aid funding, though big-dollar spending bills often hit political snags with the most conservative members, who sometimes seek offsetting spending cuts.