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Congressional leaders agreed to bipartisan legislation to avoid a government shutdown and extend the deadline to March 14

The Continuing Resolution is more than 1,500 pages long and includes more than $100 billion in funding for natural disaster relief.

The deadline to avoid a government shutdown is Dec. 20/ Alisson RobbertAFP

Published by
Joaquín Núñez

Congressional leaders reached a bipartisan agreement to avoid a government shutdown. With the December 20 deadline nipping at their heels, lawmakers filed a more than 1,500 pages Continuing Resolution (CR) to extend the deadline to March 14. Thus, resolving funding for the federal government will be the task of the next Republican Congress and the Donald Trump White House.

A CR is a stopgap funding bill often used to give the government more time to develop a final funding proposal.

As he did in mid-September, House Speaker Mike Johnson negotiated with Democrats to jointly craft a short-term funding proposal. The House is expected to move on quickly with the legislation and send it to the Senate as soon as possible.

"It was intended to be, and it was, until recent days, a very simple, very clean C.R., stopgap funding measure to get us into next year when we have unified government. We had these massive hurricanes in the late fall, Helene and Milton, and other disasters. We have to make sure that the Americans that were devastated by these hurricanes get the relief they need," Johnson told a news conference.

However, some House conservatives opposed the bill, arguing that it included too many earmarks in a single bill, commonly known as the "omnibus bill." Specifically, they were upset by what they described as a longstanding practice on Capitol Hill: assembling and introducing big spending bills just days before lawmakers leave D.C. or before a government shutdown.

"It's a total disaster. It's garbage. It’s garbage. This is what Washington, D.C., has done. This is why I ran for Congress — to try to stop this," Congressman Eric Burlison of Missouri said.

"The appetite to risk shutting the government down is not there. This is the playbook that they’ve used for a long time, pretty successfully. At some point we’re going to have to call them out on it," Ralph Norman, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, noted.

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What's in the new proposal to avoid a government shutdown?

Among other things, the bipartisan legislation to avoid a government shutdown before Dec. 20 contains the following:

  • More than $100 billion in funding for natural disaster relief
  • $30 billion in funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)
  • $2 billion in funding for the Small Business Administration
  • $10 billion in economic assistance for farmers
  • Legislation aimed at revitalizing Washington D.C.'s RFK Stadium
  • A one-year extension of the 2018 Farm Bill
  • The reauthorization of the Anti-Unmanned Aerial Systems program

What is a government shutdown?

The United States decides how to spend public money year after year when Congress passes the Appropriations Bill. The deadline lawmakers have is Oct. 1. If no text is passed by then, the federal government shuts down.

The logic comes from the National Constitution, specifically, Article 1, Section 9: "No money shall be drawn from the treasury, but in consequence of appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published from time to time."

Once closure is reached, certain agencies directly cease to function. They may be all, some or one in particular. Employees cannot work, and their pay is withheld until legislators come to an agreement.

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