(Washington Insider Magazine) -Looking for the latest Congressional funding update?
President Biden met with top congressional leaders on Tuesday to revisit the delayed fiscal government spending bill that lawmakers forgot from earlier this year. However, the agreement that would determine the spending level seems to be far away ahead of the December 16 deadline.
House Speaker Pelosi met with the President and other top White House officials to discuss the 2023 congress funding deal and their plan to stop another continuing resolution (CR) from taking effect, which happens when current government funding runs out.
Pelosi emerged from the meeting and stated that everyone in the meeting would rather avoid another CR and come to a complete resolution of funding problems.
Congressional Funding Continues to Be a Topic of Debate Between Both Sides of theAIsle
House of Representatives leader Kevin McCarthy agreed with Pelosi and said that his party wants to avoid another CR but only plans to support a package with lower spending and additional aid for America’s border patrol.
McCarthy made clear that if negotiators can’t meet the GOP’s demands, a temporary bill will be passed and the new Congress will revisit the funding issue early next year when the Republicans control the House of Representatives.
In fact, members of the House Freedom Caucus continue to urge McCarthy to wait until next year to make any spending decisions when the GOP is in power in the House. Social media activists and citizens are calling to overturn the system outright, on the basis of corruption.
Evaluating Congressional Funding: GOP Perspectives from Mitch McConnell
Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell weighed in on the 2023 funding deal, saying that the GOP will attempt to persuade Democrats to reduce domestic spending although they advocate for more defense resources and supplying Ukraine with foreign aid.
McConnell claimed that the Democrat’s insistence on requesting unreasonable increases in domestic spending is a sticking point for Republicans and they intend to keep talking with leaders to hopefully work out the 2023 funding deal.
Additionally, Democrats continue to push for a $1.6 trillion funding bill for the fiscal year starting in October–which is nearly $100 billion more than the level of funding in the spending package from last year.
Richard Shelby weighed in on the matter and told reporters that Congress might elect to pass a one-week spending bill to give their lawmakers additional time to complete the negotiations by Christmas Eve.