Congress will return to Washington after Labor Day with little-to-no chance of enacting more than 1 or 2 (and even that’s a stretch) of the 12 regular 2015 appropriations by the time the fiscal year begins on October 1.
That means it’s not just an overwhelming likelihood that a continuing resolution will be needed to keep federal agencies operating and prevent the government from shutting down, it’s a virtual certainty.
House and Senate Appropriations Committee members are still saying otherwise and some are promising at least one attempt at a single 2015 omnibus funding bill for all departments and agencies by the end of September.
There are four reasons why what the appropriators are saying can’t be taken very seriously.
First, appropriators almost always want to avoid CRs. They define their job as passing individual appropriations bills and usually take it personally when that doesn’t happen. So the fact that the appropriations committees are still talking about an omnibus – which is a clear second choice to individual bills but miles ahead of a CR – is neither surprising nor particularly significant.
Second, the politics of spending has not changed; for most members it is still better not to vote on most spending legislation before the next election, and September will be as close to the 2014 voting as you can get. With the possible exception of three appropriations -- the Pentagon, military construction and the Veterans Administration -- it is still better politics to vote for a CR before the election and make promises during the campaign about what you’re going do in a lame duck session afterwards than to make final decisions in September on which you may be judged.
Third, even if congressional Republicans and Democrats and the White House were working together – and they’re clearly won’t be doing that this fall – there won’t be enough time to get much done on appropriations after Congress gets back to Washington after Labor Day. The House is scheduled to take votes on no more than 10 days in September and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), who has talked about working weekends to get work done, is also talking about recessing by September 23.
Fourth, it’s not in the GOP’s political interest to make final appropriations decisions for fiscal 2015 before the election. With the House almost certain to stay in Republican control and the Senate majority up-for-grabs, it makes far more sense for the GOP to delay final votes on the fiscal 2015 appropriations until after it knows whether it controls both houses next year.
House and Senate Republicans could, of course, pass full-year fiscal 2015 appropriations in September and then revise them next year. But it will be much easier to have to vote for an appropriation or omnibus next year because a CR is about to expire and the government to shutdown than to revise an appropriation bill that is already in place.
As a result, expect that Congress will adopt at least two fiscal 2015 continuing resolutions. The first will be in place from October 1 to about the middle of December when the lame duck session is expected to end. A second CR will then likely be adopted that will either last through about the middle of March if Republicans win control the Senate or possibly through the full year if they don’t.
