After narrowly avoiding a federal default, the Republican-controlled House and the Democratic-led Senate are now on a collision course over spending that could result in a government shutdown this year and automatic spending cuts in early 2025 with severe consequences for the Pentagon and an array of domestic programs.
Far-right Republicans whose votes will be needed to keep the government funded are demanding cuts that go far deeper than what President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to in the bipartisan compromise they reached last month to suspend the debt ceiling, but such reductions are all but certain to be nonstarters in the Senate.
The looming stalemate threatens to further complicate a process that was already going to be extraordinarily difficult, as top members of Congress try for the first time in years to pass individual spending bills to fund all parts of the government in an orderly fashion and avoid the usual year-end pileup.
If they cannot, under the terms of the debt limit deal, across-the-board spending cuts will kick in in 2025, a worst-case scenario that lawmakers in both parties want to avoid.
The clashes began this week, when House appropriators began considering their spending bills and, working to appease their ultraconservative wing, said they intended to fund federal agencies at below the levels that Mr. Biden and Mr. McCarthy had agreed to.
Persons:
Biden, Kevin McCarthy, appropriators, McCarthy
Organizations:
Republican, Democratic, Pentagon, Senate