How Long Before Government Can Vote Again on Shutdown

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has set a Christmas deadline for passing the roughly $2 trillion spending neb that includes the majority of President Biden'southward agenda. Jemal Countess/Getty Images for SEIU hibernate caption

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Jemal Countess/Getty Images for SEIU

Senate Bulk Leader Chuck Schumer, D-North.Y., has set a Christmas deadline for passing the roughly $2 trillion spending bill that includes the bulk of President Biden's agenda.

Jemal Countess/Getty Images for SEIU

Lawmakers return to Washington, D.C., with a familiar finish-of-the-year agenda — a pileup of of import bills and not a lot of fourth dimension to deed on them.

The nigh firsthand effect is avoiding a partial government shutdown at the end of the calendar week, but they also demand to address the nation's borrowing authority and annual defense policy bill.

Democrats have too set Christmas as their own deadline for passing the roughly $2 trillion domestic spending neb that includes climate, health intendance and child intendance programs. This massive bill is the second piece of President Biden's "Build Back Improve" agenda. (The $1 trillion infrastructure bill was signed earlier this month and Biden has begun an effort to tout its value to communities around the country.)

Congress is supposed to start its winter recess on December. 11, merely with everything on its plate, most people expect both chambers to stay at the Capitol longer this year.

Hither's a rundown of Congress' to-do listing:

Authorities funding

Federal agencies run out of money at midnight on Friday. No agreement seems within reach on the dozens of spending bills that fund the federal government. Instead, lawmakers are working on kick the can downward the road for some period of fourth dimension. Republican and Democratic appropriators are crafting a stopgap funding beak, referred to as a continuing resolution, that extends current spending levels. Only House and Senate committees oasis't agreed to a how long they desire a brusk-term bill to last.

One source familiar with the discussions tells NPR that negotiators are coalescing around a CR that goes into tardily Jan or potentially into Feb then the two chambers can have more fourth dimension to work out an agreement on total twelvemonth funding bills.

Debt limit

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen notified Congress earlier this month that they have until Dec. 15 to increase the nation'due south borrowing limit or risk defaulting on the country's bills. The outcome caused a partisan standoff earlier this fall, but ultimately Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., agreed to a deal that avoided any default for weeks. He and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., have held some talks well-nigh the issue but there is no articulate path to accost the result.

Republicans are again urging Democrats to attach a debt limit hike to a budget reconciliation packet and laissez passer it on their own, since they tin can approve a bill using rules that avoid a GOP filibuster. But many Democrats oppose this and say it could exist tough to cease that neb in time.

"If the Republicans want to Scrooge out on us and increase people's interest rates and make information technology difficult to make machine payments, go ahead and make that case. We're going to cease them from doing that," Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said on ABC's This Week on Sunday.

It'southward possible that the borderline for needing to act could slip into early adjacent year, depending on Treasury'south receipts, just leaders say they intend to deed in Dec.

Defense authorization beak

Congress has canonical the annual policy pecker for almost 60 years. As usual, the House and Senate are working on different versions. This year's nib includes reforms to the arrangement for prosecuting allegations of sexual assault in the armed forces, a pay increase for servicemen and women and measures to increase war machine support for Ukraine amid a new threat from Russia. It can have months to negotiate a final deal between the two chambers and the chairs of both the House and Senate armed services panels have pressed leaders to brand information technology a priority. The Firm approved its version and the Senate is expected to vote this calendar week on its bill.

Build Back Better spending neb

After House passage of the roughly $2 trillion package final week, several Senate Democrats indicated they want to encounter some changes.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., opposes the 4 weeks of paid family unit leave in the House bill, so that is expected to be stripped out. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., wants to expand Medicare coverage to include vision and dental benefits. The immigration provisions that would provide work permits for those who entered the country since January 2011 and forestall them from being deported is beingness reviewed past the Senate parliamentarian to see if the changes to the constabulary run across the limits of what tin be included in a budget reconciliation package. Democrats are using the reconciliation process to become effectually a Republican filibuster.

There's too continued debate over a revenue enhancement deduction aimed at states with high state and local property taxes. Some Democrats, including Sanders, warn that the style that Firm structured the deduction could cease up giving many wealthy Americans a significant tax intermission, and would run afoul of entrada pledges to make the rich pay their fair share.

Schumer set a Christmas timetable to stop the bill and ship it to the president, but if the Senate changes the bill, equally expected, the House will have to vote on it once more. Democrats worry that it volition become more than difficult to pass if debate spills over into 2022, an election year. They desire to complete action on the domestic spending bill that includes climate, health care, child intendance programs then they tin campaign on those policies and the infrastructure bill the president signed recently.

One unknown factor every bit House and Senate members travel back to Washington — news of a new coronavirus variant. Biden met with his COVID job force members Sun and is urging those who have not been vaccinated to get the shot and for those eligible to get a booster.

Over the summer the administration was criticized for not moving chop-chop enough to address the spread of the delta variant. At that place'due south no indication so far that the omicron variant will be more transmissible or cause serious symptoms, but lawmakers are mindful of continuing to address the pandemic, and any potential economic impacts.

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Source: https://www.npr.org/2021/11/29/1059718970/congress-returns-to-tight-deadlines-on-government-funding-bidens-agenda-and-more

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