Spending deal averts possible federal government shutdown, funds government through December

WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders announced an agreement Sunday on a short-term spending bill that would provide funding to federal agencies for about three months, averting a partial government shutdown when the new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, with final decisions not being made until after the November election.

Lawmakers have been struggling to reach this point as the current budget year comes to a close at the end of the month. At the request of the most conservative members of his conference, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., linked the stopgap funding to an order that would force states to require proof of citizenship when people register to vote.

But Johnson couldn’t convince all Republicans, even as the party’s presidential candidate, Donald Trump, pushed for the package. Trump said Republican lawmakers shouldn’t support a stopgap measure without requiring a vote, but the bill was defeated anyway, with 14 Republicans opposing it.

Bipartisan negotiations began in earnest shortly thereafter, with leaders agreeing to extend funding through mid-December. That gives the current Congress the ability to craft a year-long spending bill after the Nov. 5 election, rather than handing that responsibility to the next Congress and president.

In a letter to Republican colleagues, Johnson said the budget proposal would be “very narrow, bare-bones” and would include “only those expansions that are absolutely necessary.”

“While it is not the outcome any of us prefer, it is the most prudent path forward in the current circumstances,” Johnson wrote. “As history teaches us, and as current polls confirm, a government shutdown less than 40 days before a disastrous election would be an act of political dishonesty.”

Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said Friday that talks were progressing well.

“Nothing has happened so far that we can’t handle,” said Cole, R-Okla. “Most people don’t want a government shutdown and they don’t want it to interfere with the election. So nobody’s saying, ‘I have to have this or we’re going away.’ That’s just not the case.”

Johnson’s previous efforts had fallen short in the Democratic-majority Senate and faced opposition from the White House, but they gave the speaker a chance to show Trump and conservatives at the conference that he had fought for their request.

The end result — government funding essentially on autopilot — was what many predicted. With the election just weeks away, few lawmakers in either party were willing to engage in the kind of tightrope walk that often leads to a government shutdown.

Now, a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure across the finish line. The temporary spending bills typically fund agencies at current levels, but some additional money has been included to bolster the Secret Service, replenish the disaster relief fund and aid the president’s transition, among other things.