On Thursday, Congress narrowly averted a government shutdown, one day before a January 19 funding deadline.
That’s welcome news: Government employees won’t be furloughed and programs won’t be delayed — but only for now. The deal does nothing to resolve the spending disagreements that put the government in danger of a shutdown in the first place, and could threaten the House’s ability to function if far-right Republicans unhappy with the deal manage to oust Speaker Mike Johnson over what they see as intolerable compromises with Democrats.
The short-term spending bill Congress passed — known as a continuing resolution, or CR — will only keep the government funded until early March. At that point, Congress, and the country, will have to navigate questions about a potential shutdown all over again.
In recent years, shutdowns — or the threat of one — have become more common as Congress has become more polarized and as lawmakers, particularly Republicans, have sought to leverage these must-pass annual spending bills to send a message to their base. Conservatives, for instance, have recently threatened to shut down the government if the spending deal didn’t include more aggressive border security policies that make it harder to seek asylum.
This week, Democrats jumped in to help the House GOP pass the CR without the assistance of these hardliners, but it’s this kind of partisan grandstanding that leads to the government feeling like it’s constantly on the verge of a shutdown and that Congress is unable to complete even its most basic tasks.
Why are we talking about a potential shutdown again?
Each year, lawmakers have to pass either 12 full-year spending bills or a CR by the end of September in order to keep the government open.
Because Congress tends to procrastinate, lawmakers are often working up until that deadline on these bills, heightening concerns that they might not finish the job.
That’s exactly what happened last…
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