Congress has yet to finalize its fiscal year 2015 spending bill, though lawmakers expect a deal soon as a Thursday night deadline looms.
After several delays in releasing the compromise spending bill, the House now hopes to post the text of the bill sometime Tuesday evening and vote on the measure Thursday mid-afternoon, according to a congressional source–making it virtually impossible for the Senate to debate and vote on the bill in time to avoid a government shutdown. The source added that the House would also pass a short-term continuing resolution to keep the government open for a matter of days until the Senate can vote on the compromise bill.
The continuing resolution passed in September in lieu of an appropriations bill expires Thursday at midnight. Before the Thanksgiving recess, appropriators in the House and Senate sounded optimistic about their ability to agree on compromise language that would include all 12 subcommittees’ bills–which cover all the federal departments and agencies in the discretionary side of the budget–and fund them for the rest of the fiscal year.
But despite the significant progress that was made by committee staffers over the Thanksgiving holiday, talks have stalled since. Many Republicans, angry about President Barack Obama’s Nov. 20 announcement that he’d take executive action on immigration issues, support withholding funding from the agencies that would carry out Obama’s initiatives. Despite objections from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), many Republicans rallied around a bill that would give full-year funding to all departments except DHS, which would only receive funding through February (Defense Daily, Dec. 2). Republicans, who will take control of the Senate and increase their majority in the House in January, would decide after the new year what to do with DHS funding.
The congressional source said on Tuesday afternoon that there were only a few outstanding items being negotiated, all of which were minor issues. The deal will likely include DHS funding through February, the source added.
The Democrat-majority in the Senate would then essentially face a yes-or-no vote on the bill. Opposing it due to the short-term DHS funding would mean triggering a government shutdown during the holiday season.