Leaders in both parties are racing to secure a deal on government spending as the negotiation window quickly closes and the fears of a shutdown grow more pronounced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Congress returns to Washington next week facing a pair of looming funding deadlines \u2014 March 1 for a handful of agencies and March 8 for the rest \u2014 leaving lawmakers with little time to iron out their differences and get bills to the floor to keep the government open.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Speaker Mike Johnson <\/a>(R-La.) has moved deftly to avoid a shutdown since taking the gavel in October, restive conservatives are losing patience with his willingness to cut budget deals across the aisle. And some observers on Capitol Hill are already warning that the current fight is the greatest shutdown threat of this Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m worried. Of all the scares we\u2019ve had since the last fiscal year, I think this is going to be the scariest. I think we could be in a world of hurt,\u201d said a Senate GOP aide. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019ll be a partial or a full, but I think the chances of a shutdown are the highest we\u2019ve had this fiscal year.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Party leaders in both chambers have sought to assure the public \u2014 and the markets \u2014 that the sides will come together to adopt their appropriations bills and avoid any disruptions to government operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n But a number of disagreements remain between the parties. And Johnson is facing additional pressures from within his own Republican conference, where conservatives are demanding right-wing policy riders that are a non-starter with Democrats in both Congress and the White House. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The mix of factors \u2014 political, tactical and temporal \u2014 is sparking plenty of concerns that Congress will be unable to reach the agreement to prevent the partial shutdown that\u2019s looming at the end of next week. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the odds are 50-50 at this point,\u201d Rep. Patrick McHenry <\/a>(R-N.C.) told CBS\u2019s Major Garrett <\/a>on \u201cThe Takeout\u201d podcast this week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McHenry, chair of the Financial Services Committee, called the current shutdown threat \u201ca preventable disaster\u201d \u2014 one that might have been avoided if party leaders had moved the spending bills late last year instead of kicking the process into an election year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He\u2019s urging Johnson to resist the ultimatums from his conservative wing and move forward with whatever agreements emerge from the talks between appropriators, who have been working furiously through the holiday recess to finalize their bills in time for the first deadline next Friday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A deal is expected to be released as early as Sunday<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAll the Speaker has to do is allow the Appropriations Committee to go get a deal,\u201d McHenry said. \u201cIf the Speaker wishes to stop it, for whatever reason, we\u2019ll probably have a government shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The debate is the latest challenge for Johnson who, less than four months into his Speakership, is facing the same dilemma over government funding that led to the removal of his predecessor. And his options all carry risks. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If Johnson brings bipartisan spending compromises to the floor, he could keep the government open but might face the conservative backlash that toppled former Speaker Kevin McCarthy <\/a>(R-Calif.). If he decides to block those spending bills, the government would likely shut down, providing a political gift to President Biden <\/a>and the Democrats just months before November\u2019s elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe House is working hard to meet the deadlines,\u201d a Speaker spokesperson told The Hill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sen. John Thune <\/a>(R-S.D.) acknowledged that Johnson is essentially in the driver\u2019s seat, saying the direction of the spending debate will \u201chinge principally on what the House thinks they can do.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ll see what the appetite is, but the House probably drives that,\u201d Thune told The Hill on Thursday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a ton of pressure to get it done in a short amount of time,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hard-liners are already turning up the heat on Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Twenty-eight members of the House Freedom Caucus penned a letter to the Speaker on Wednesday requesting an update on their conservative policy demands, which touch on a host of explosive topics that include abortion, immigration and eliminating the salaries of certain federal officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Without those provisions, the hard-liners said, the House will have a difficult time wrangling GOP support for government funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are MANY other policies and personnel that Congress should not be funding, and a failure to eliminate them will reduce the probability that the appropriations bills will be supported by even a majority of Republicans,\u201d the lawmakers wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The demand for policy riders has already been squarely rejected by top Democrats, who are warning that any bill with those provisions will never reach Biden\u2019s desk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe riders are non-negotiable. They\u2019re off the table,\u201d said Rep. Rosa DeLauro <\/a>(Conn.), senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. \u201cGet those off the table, we can come to conclusions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats have their own set of policy demands, including more funding for a federal program \u2014 the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC \u2014 that helps to feed millions of low-income children and their mothers. WIC is facing a shortfall, and DeLauro said Democrats won\u2019t support any spending bill that doesn\u2019t fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s an issue that is not negotiable,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If conservatives do not secure their policy riders, as expected, the hard-liners are already eyeing a Plan B<\/a> to fund the government: a one-year continuing resolution that would trigger a 1 percent cut across the board beginning in April, as per the mechanism lawmakers included in the debt limit deal last year to encourage completion of the appropriations process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Democrats \u2014 and even some GOP defense hawks \u2014 are adamantly opposed to that cut, while conservatives are embracing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf we are not going to secure significant policy changes or even keep spending below the caps adopted by the bipartisan majorities less than one year ago, why would we proceed when we could instead pass a year-long funding resolution that would save Americans $100 billion in year one?\u201d the Freedom Caucus members wrote to Johnson.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The stakes in the spending debate also extend to the campaign trail, where Republicans are trying to demonstrate to voters that they can govern capably and deserve to remain in the House majority next year. With that in mind, some of the more vulnerable GOP lawmakers are already pressing Johnson to move quickly next week to prevent a shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen we get back, we need to move expeditiously to pass the appropriations bills. The time for haggling over it is over,\u201d Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) said. \u201cI will leave it to leadership on how they plan to proceed. But at the end of the day, we need to fund the government. We\u2019re not dealing with a government shutdown.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lawler, who represents a district Biden won by 10 points in 2020, also had some choice words for the conservatives who say they\u2019d prefer a shutdown to new funding bills that will increase deficit spending. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cFor my colleagues that have a problem with it,\u201d he said, \u201cthey should have thought long and hard about that before they removed Kevin McCarthy as Speaker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another potential landmine in the debate is the question of sending additional aid to Ukraine, which has bedeviled lawmakers \u2014 especially Johnson \u2014 for months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Johnson had opposed the Senate negotiated foreign-aid-plus-border-security bill, arguing that the border provisions did not go far enough. But conservatives are still balking at sending aid overseas without border security, demanding policies similar to those in H.R. 2, the sweeping border package they passed last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n McHenry said there\u2019s \u201ca pretty high chance\u201d lawmakers will seek to attach the stalled foreign aid onto spending bills, especially if the government does shut down and Congress finds itself looking for a way out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt could be post-government shutdown if that happens. The point of leverage becomes mighty then,\u201d McHenry told CBS. \u201cIt could be in the week leading up, to the week leading after \u2026 There are a couple different legislative avenues that can be taken.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Combining spending with foreign aid, however, would only expose Johnson to more attacks from conservatives, many of whom are opposed to any overseas assistance without first addressing the border. Some said they trust Johnson not to bring such a bill to the floor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cOur members are not interested in funding the Ukraine effort going forward if the southern border is unsecured, and the Speaker has been crystal clear on that,\u201d Rep. Byron Donalds <\/a>(R-Fla.) said. \u201cThe White House and the Senate just simply don\u2019t care.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n As lawmakers barrel toward their fourth shutdown showdown this Congress \u2014 which has been billed the most unproductive in years \u2014 some members are openly airing their frustration with being unable to complete the \u201ckey\u201d part of their job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAppropriations bills being the key issue of just basic job performance \u2026 It\u2019s like showing up to work on time and passing your drug test. It\u2019s like that basic level. It\u2019s not saying you\u2019re competent or good or anything else,\u201d McHenry told CBS. \u201cBut we\u2019ve done a terrible job with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n