Biden Signs Short-Term Spending Plan to Avert Government Shutdown
By Hugh T. Ferguson, NASFAA Senior Staff Reporter
President Joe Biden signed another continuing resolution into law for fiscal year 2024, averting a government shutdown that was slated to go into effect on November 17. Congressional appropriators now have a few more weeks to wrap up negotiations on the fiscal year 2024 spending levels.
On Tuesday, the House advanced the two-tiered continuing resolution, by a vote of 336-95, that extends funding for one batch of the 12 spending bills through January 19, while a second batch, which includes the Labor-HHS-Education bill that funds the Department of Education (ED), is extended through February 2.
The Senate then took up the bill late Wednesday evening and overwhelmingly cleared it by a vote of 87-11.
The appropriations process has been plagued by stalled negotiations this cycle which resulted in former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) losing his speakership. McCarthy’s successor Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Ga.) now has to contend with how to address a longer-term spending agreement and has been trying to move stand-alone bills through the House during the month of November.
Johnson tried to bring the House Republicans’ Labor-HHS-Education bill to the floor on Wednesday, which was still in the process of being amended and proposes deep cuts to funding for ED, but that effort was blocked by hard-line Republicans who were protesting the Speaker’s decision to rely on Democrats to advance the continuing resolution.
Congress is now on recess through Thanksgiving and will resume spending talks in December.
Publication Date: 11/17/2023
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