{"id":15602,"date":"2025-11-13T10:02:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-13T10:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-next-shutdown-threat-is-around-the-corner\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T10:02:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T10:02:12","slug":"the-next-shutdown-threat-is-around-the-corner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/the-next-shutdown-threat-is-around-the-corner\/","title":{"rendered":"The next shutdown threat is around the corner"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

The longest shutdown in U.S. history is ending. Yet Congress\u2019 most onerous government funding work remains unfinished \u2014 setting up a potential repeat early next year.<\/p>\n

The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse<\/a> includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing to federal programs. And those three measures are some of the easiest to rally around \u2014 including money for veterans programs, food aid, assistance for farmers and the operations of Congress itself.<\/p>\n

Together, they represent only about 10 percent of the roughly $1.8 trillion Congress doles out each year to federal agencies. Under the deal, everything else is funded on a temporary basis through Jan. 30 at levels first set by Congress in March 2024, when Joe Biden was president.<\/p>\n

That leaves behind major open decisions about the vast majority of discretionary dollars \u2014 including for the military and public health programs \u2014 along with the stickiest policy issues. It doesn\u2019t help that House and Senate leaders still haven\u2019t agreed on an overall total for fiscal 2026 spending, amid GOP divisions over how deeply to cut.<\/p>\n

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise<\/a> acknowledged this month that the hardest part of the funding negotiations is ahead after President Donald Trump signs the current deal to end the shutdown.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve got to just find a resolution to get the lights back on,\u201d Scalise said. \u201cBut the real negotiation is going to be: Can we get an agreement on how to properly fund the government with individual appropriations bills, packages of appropriations bills?\u201d<\/p>\n

If lawmakers don\u2019t figure it all out by the new January deadline, Congress risks another partial shutdown or running most of the federal government on what are essentially two-year-old budgets. Some Democrats are already hinting they are willing to shut down the government again without a deal on Affordable Care Act insurance subsidies that expire at the end of this year.<\/p>\n

Compounding the challenge are fears that partisan strife during the six-week shutdown will only complicate the already-grueling task of striking a cross-party compromise.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to function again, we\u2019ve got to be able to trust each other,\u201d senior appropriator Sen. Jeanne Shaheen<\/a> (D-N.H.) told reporters this week, after helping broker the deal to end the shutdown.<\/p>\n

The three-bill deal appears to have done little to repair the breach. One of Congress\u2019 top four appropriators, Rep. Rosa DeLauro<\/a> (D-Conn.), objected to how final negotiations played out over the weekend to close out the funding package.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe entire House was marginalized in this process,\u201d she said Tuesday night during a Rules Committee meeting.<\/p>\n

DeLauro accused Senate Republicans of \u201cabruptly\u201d stopping talks in the middle of negotiations, making the bills public before she signed off and secretly adding controversial language<\/a> without consulting House lawmakers.<\/p>\n

In the Senate, leaders have committed to quickly advancing more funding measures. Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> said senators would be \u201coff to the races\u201d on a second package of spending measures when the chamber gavels back in on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Up to five bills are under consideration for inclusion in that package, covering funding for the military and the departments of Education, Commerce, Labor, Health and Human Services, Justice, Transportation, Interior and Housing and Urban Development.<\/p>\n

Getting that done will be hard enough. All 100 senators would have to consent to quickly assemble the bills on the floor, likely followed by weeks of debate before a vote on passage. Then top Senate appropriators would need to strike a compromise with their House counterparts.<\/p>\n

But the remaining spending bills will be even tougher. Four are so divisive that Senate appropriators didn\u2019t even approve them in committee this summer. Lawmakers in both parties agree it is likely that agencies covered under that slate \u2014 among them the departments of Energy, Homeland Security, State and Treasury, including the IRS \u2014 will eventually be funded through a stopgap that spans through next September.<\/p>\n

Democrats warn that any partisan demands from Trump or hard-liners in the House could deadlock the effort to reach agreements on the nine bills left.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they want to add poison pills, obviously the whole thing will fall apart,\u201d Sen. Chris Van Hollen<\/a> (D-Md.), a senior appropriator, said in a brief interview.<\/p>\n

But Democrats are also motivated to strike bipartisan deals in light of Trump and White House budget director Russ Vought\u2019s moves this year to shift, freeze and cancel billions of dollars Congress already approved.<\/p>\n

Senators have been careful to be more explicit in the new trio of funding bills about how the Trump administration must spend the money.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, those are not the bills I would have written,\u201d the Senate\u2019s top Democratic appropriator, Washington Sen. Patty Murray<\/a>, said in a floor speech this week. But those bills, she added, are \u201cimmeasurably better than Trump and Vought holding the pen.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a lot of work ahead, and I know we can get there \u2014 passing full-year funding bills to ensure Congress, not Trump or Russ Vought, decides how taxpayer dollars are spent,\u201d she continued.<\/p>\n

A couple of the remaining bills, however, are subject to much more profound disputes. An intraparty disagreement over funding levels between Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins<\/a> (R-Maine) and Sen. John Kennedy<\/a> (R-La.), for instance, has left the energy bill in limbo.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that is a new experience for everybody on the committee,\u201d Kennedy said this week. \u201cBut I\u2019m not backing down.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s the DHS measure, which hasn\u2019t been unveiled, let alone advanced through committee amid a deep partisan dispute over curbing Trump\u2019s immigration agenda.<\/p>\n

Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy<\/a>, the top Democrat on the panel that funds DHS, said he wants \u201creal constraints\u201d to prevent what he calls the Trump administration\u2019s \u201cclearly illegal\u201d transfers of funding to support border enforcement and mass deportations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s going to be really hard to get a bipartisan long-term budget,\u201d Murphy said, pointing to $600 million the administration is now using for detaining immigrants despite Congress explicitly approving it for \u201cnon-detention\u201d efforts.<\/p>\n

Sen. Katie Britt<\/a> of Alabama, who has clashed with Murphy as his GOP counterpart on the panel, acknowledged appropriators have \u201ca lot of hard work in front of us\u201d when asked this week about the challenge of advancing the next tranche of spending bills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone is naive,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The longest shutdown in U.S. history is ending. Yet Congress\u2019 most onerous government funding work remains unfinished \u2014 setting up a potential repeat early next year. The bipartisan deal to end the funding lapse includes a long-term agreement on just three of the dozen bills lawmakers need to finish each year to keep cash flowing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15602"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15602\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}