Congressional leaders on Tuesday made their first steps toward approving a funding measure that would keep the federal government running after fiscal year 2016 kicks off on Oct. 1.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) filed a continuing resolution (CR) that, if passed, would extend government funding through Dec. 11. The measure is teed up for a Thursday vote, but Democrats will likely block it unless Republican leaders agree to strip away a provision that would eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood.
The bill, proposed by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), would appropriate funding at an annual rate of $1.017 trillion—the topline discretionary spending limit for fiscal year 2016. It provides annual rates of $521.4 billion for the defense base budget and $74.7 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations.
Like the Republican-backed appropriations and authorization bills, the proposed CR legislation would boost defense by increasing funding for wartime accounts, thus allowing the Defense Department budget to skirt spending caps imposed by the under the Budget Control Act of 2011.
In comparison, the Obama administration’s budget requests a defense base budget of $534.3 billion—a sum that exceeds the BCA caps—and $50.9 billion for OCO.
The CR would also prohibit the Defense Department from starting new programs, entering into multi-year contracts or increasing production rates.
“Our committee has approved all 12 of the annual appropriations bills required to meet our national security and domestic priorities. Most of these bills have bipartisan support,” Cochran said in a statement. “I encourage senators to support this continuing resolution so that we can meet our responsibility to the American people to keep government operations open and address the challenges facing our nation.”
In a Thursday afternoon press conference, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) indicated that after a failed vote on Thursday, he expects McConnell to move a “clean CR” without language defunding Planned Parenthood.
However, during his own press conference, McConnell made no such promises.
“We’ll do the vote on Thursday and see how it comes out,” he said.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) said he was worried that even a clean CR would not get enough votes to move forward, leading to a government shutdown.
Either way, passing a CR instead of a regular budget would adversely impact the Pentagon, he said. “The military can’t plan, they can’t do the work that they need to do [while] lurching from one CR to another.”
Earlier this morning, Senate Democrats once again filibustered the defense appropriations bill in a 54-42 vote that needed a 60-member majority to move to the floor. Sen. Joe Donnelly (R-Ind.) was the only member of the minority party who voted in favor of the bill.
While Democrats support the level of funding contained in the appropriations bill, they want to see similar increases for other non-discretionary spending, said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who helped helm the bill as ranking member of the defense appropriations subcommittee.
“The question is whether the money that’s going to be invested in non-defense agencies is also going to be protected in this appropriations process,” he said. “We’re willing to put $38 billion more in defense. Let’s put the same amount in non-defense.”