WASHINGTON – Republicans this week said they are working toward a continuing resolution to fund the federal government through March 31 instead of a full-year appropriations bill, a decision that disappointed Democrats and several GOP members.
The stopgap spending measure announced by House and Senate leaders Thursday would ensure that no new appropriations bills would occur under the Obama administration, and would allow President-elect Donald Trump to also weigh in on the matter.
Members from both congressional appropriations committees, including House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky. said that the announcement does not do any good for the operations of the federal government.
Rogers said that the short-term goal is to keep federal agencies running, but also ensure future progress on appropriations bills.
"While I'm disappointed that the Congress is not going to be able to complete our annual funding work this year, I am extremely hopeful that the new Congress and the new administration will finish these bills," Rogers said. "I am … hopeful for a renewed and vigorous 'regular order' on future annual funding bills, so that the damaging process of continuing resolutions will no longer be necessary,"
Democrats, not surprisingly, were also concerned at the idea that a federal spending bill could be delayed until March.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., vice chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, said she was disappointed that Republicans are working on a CR bill rather than full-year appropriations. Mikulski said that both parties have been working over the past year to write appropriations bills and believed that bipartisan agreement on issues including defense and compliance with the Bipartisan Budget Act could make an omnibus spending bill possible.
"We believe we can finish the job," Mikulski said. "We do not want a government shutdown."
"My preference would be to do our job and work on an omnibus funding bill," she added. "How we proceed from a parliamentary standpoint, whether it's one whole bill or a series of minibuses, could be discussed. We could do it."
Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, said the move to punt on appropriations legislation is "not shocking" that the Republican majority opted for a CR, adding that it "throws in the garbage months of painstaking bipartisan work."
She called it a "fitting end to an embarrassment of an appropriations process."
"The Republican majority abandoning fiscal 2017 spending bills disregards the public desire for Republicans and Democrats to work together to meet critical challenges," she said.
In late September, the Senate passed a CR to keep the federal government running through Dec. 9. The move prevented a government shutdown from beginning on Oct. 1, when fiscal 2017 started.
