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 possible partial government shutdown when the recent fiscal year begins Oct. 1 and postponing final decisions until after the November election.

While the stopgap spending bills typically provide agency funding at current levels, an additional $231 million was earmarked to bolster the Secret Service following two assassination attempts on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. Additional funds were also earmarked to support the transition of presidential power, among other things.

Lawmakers have He was struggling to get to this point as the current budget year ends 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.

Johnson, however, abandoned that approach to reaching a deal, although Trump has insisted that no stopgap measure be implemented without requiring a vote.

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.”

House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats will evaluate the bill in its entirety before voting this week, but with the agreement, “Congress is now on a bipartisan path to avoid a government shutdown that would hurt ordinary Americans.”

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 miniature 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.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the same deal could have been reached two weeks ago, but “Speaker Johnson chose the MAGA route and wasted valuable time.”

“As I’ve said throughout this process, there’s only one way to get this done: bipartisan, bicameral support,” Schumer said.

Now, a bipartisan majority is expected to push the short-term measure across the finish line this week. Agreement on the short-term measure doesn’t mean it will be basic to get to a final spending bill in December. The election results could also affect political calculations if one party does significantly better than the other, potentially pushing the fight to early next year.

The Secret Service funding also comes with strings attached, as lawmakers conditioned it on the Department of Homeland Security providing specific information to a House task force and Senate committee investigating the assassination attempts on Trump.

In a recent letter, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortage was not a reason for Trump’s security failures when the gunman was climbed onto an unsecured roof July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr. said this week that the agency had “urgent needs” and that he was talking to Congress.