Yahoo Finance With Spending Fight Looming, House Starts August Recess Early
The House on Thursday passed one annual spending bill, punted on another and then dismissed lawmakers early for a six-week recess, setting up a crunch to avoid a government shutdown by the September 30 deadline.
“Members are advised that votes are no longer expected in the House tomorrow,” Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, announced from the House floor. Scalise said there would be one final vote series on Thursday. “Then we will be finished for the August work period,” he said.
The break comes after the House passed its first 2024 appropriations bill, funding military construction projects and the Department of Veterans Affairs via a 219-211 vote. Two Republicans joined with all Democrats in opposing the bill.
A second funding bill, covering appropriations for agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, has been delayed by an internal GOP clash related to language in the bill overturning FDA guidance allowing the abortion pill mifepristone to be sold by mail and at pharmacies. About a dozen moderate Republicans demanded that the measure be removed from the spending bill, which also calls for sharp cuts to nutrition programs. Far-right members say they won’t approve the agriculture bill if the abortion-related measure is cut. They also want additional spending cuts that some moderates oppose.
Republicans in disarray: The fate of the annual spending bills remains uncertain as some conservatives push for spending cuts that go beyond the cap levels set by the deal reached earlier this year by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and the White House. “McCarthy’s leadership team hoped to pass as many of their 12 annual funding bills as possible on the floor this month, aiming for a show of Republican unity that might bolster the House in a coming standoff with the Senate over federal funding,” Politico’s Meredith Lee Hill reports. “Now House GOP lawmakers are leaving the Capitol on a note of disarray rather than cohesion, with a single passage vote to tout on a veterans funding bill and two spending measures still stuck in committee.”
Senate appropriators pass final four spending bills: Senate appropriators on Thursday advanced the final four government funding bills they needed to pass, including those for Defense and Homeland Security. “This Committee just finished passing all 12 individual appropriations bills in overwhelmingly bipartisan votes—and we did it before the end of July. Everyone who follows this process knows that is a big deal,” said Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington. “It is not mission accomplished. As we all know, we still have to get these bills passed through the full Senate, and the House, and signed into law, and I know that all of us are going to work really hard to get that done. But this is a really big deal.”
What’s next: Well, the August recess. But the House still has 11 appropriations bills to pass when it returns on September 12 and reconciling House spending levels with the higher levels the Senate is aiming for will be an immense challenge. And funding the government will be just one of a handful of crucial tasks lawmakers will face when they return with 12 legislative days to go before the September 30 deadline.
On the bright side: “This week wasn't a total legislative loss — the Senate did designate July 2023 as National Blueberry Month and the House held a subcommittee hearing on UFOs with the implication it would be holding more in the near future,” writes TD Cowen analyst Chris Krueger.
The bottom line: A brutal September lies ahead and a government shutdown in October appears increasingly likely. Failure to enact new spending bills by January 1 would mean an across-the-board 1% cut to discretionary spending under the terms of the deal between McCarthy and Biden.
