Continuing resolution

They are planning to have bills ready to go in December.

The CR expires on December 11th.

I think it's unlikely that we'll pass appropriations bills by then.

We may need another short-term CR, but probably maybe just a week or so in December.

And The Democrats I've talked to in the leadership would like to see the appropriations bills passed because they want to clear the decks.

They're confident they're going to be in control of Congress next year.

It's all part of the firm's American Dream initiative and plan to power 10 million small businesses.

We'll read more about that in the Readback newsletter, which is in your inboxes, listeners, as you listen to this right now.

But I'm curious, what were the vendors at this conference talking about? In a previous life, I was a web producer at a federal workforce trade publication, and And one thing I know is that defense, big defense, the defense industrial complex hates continuing resolutions.

That was that was probably the biggest takeaway.

And so we're in one or we're about to be in one.

Well, as industry is commenting on these long-term policy changes, it's also watching Congress make some immediate decisions about funding.

And for the first time in a while, we have a continuing resolution that will cross fiscal years before we actually get to the fiscal year.

From your members' perspective, what's the practical significance of having that, I'll use my air quotes here, "funding certainty"?

Yeah.

Let's start with good news.

We have a past continuing resolution that will fund the government through December 11th.

Doesn't promise no shutdowns after that, but at least we'll get through Thanksgiving this time.

But it wasn't an easy path.

Kind of walk us through what happened over the last week to get that across the finish line.

Yeah, it gets really kind of complicated, especially when a lot of people on both sides of the aisle really wanted to get this continuing resolution passed.

And that includes the top appropriators, Tom Cole from Oklahoma and Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut, both of them on the same page here saying, even though they don't love continuing resolutions, they thought, OK, we'll get this passed and we'll get it through December 11th.

So we have federal spending and the lights stay on in the government.

Amazing.

I know we're just supposed to fill this couple of minutes with banter, but we did have some key things transpire, including a continuing resolution through December 11th.

I mean, there's no countdown clock.

There's no apocalypse waiting to happen with a government shutdown, at least till December, which is remarkable.

I think you nailed it.

The only thing that I would add, you, you commented about, uh, it, it's kind of a, a I guess a mixed blessing that we're getting a CR, but the fact that there's no major drama about a shutdown on the 1st October is very refreshing.

When the House comes back, li- like Glazer mentioned, it was a bipartisan passing of the CR.

I think it was, like, 94 to six or something like that in the, or 92 to four in the Senate.

So the CR passed overwhelmingly.

The Speaker is gonna bring the Senate passed CR to the floor under suspension of the rules, which means the bill doesn't have to go to the Rules Committee, which slows it down, and but it requires a two-thirds majority.

So it's obvious that Speaker has the votes lined up, or he wouldn't bring it to the floor.

So I think you're right.

Congress returns from its August recess facing a packed fall agenda, with federal funding, public health leadership, and looming midterm elections shaping what lawmakers can accomplish before the end of the year.

On this View from Washington, D.C., ASTHO's Vice President of Government Affairs, Jeffrey Acoma, discusses the latest developments on Capitol Hill, the continuing resolution that will keep the federal government funded through December 11th, the negotiations over FY2027 funding, and what to watch for after the midterms in November.

Jeffrey Acoma, welcome back to the show.

It's a pleasure to be back as always.

Yeah.

So, as you know, federal funding for the current fiscal year expires on September 30th.

And Congress approved a continuing resolution that would extend funding through December 11th.

And it's expected that the president will sign that into law.

Hmm.

separate standalone story of its own unfortunately so okay anyway uh following up on some of the things we discussed earlier yes the house has i don't want to have the guardians reporting on it but it's as good as any we'll take a look the guardians report on the house agreeing to the senate's uh continuing resolution i i hesitate to call it a continuing resolution only i mean there's really no reason not to that's what it is but it's a little odd i'm i'm A little surprised that they went ahead and did this in this fashion.

Usually continuing resolution is usually something you see passing at the last minute, but that's not a prerequisite for it being considered a continuing resolution.

It's just that usually when they've run out of time and there's a government shutdown looming, sometimes a matter of days, sometimes a matter of hours, they resort to a continuing resolution.

It just says, let everything continue as it was under the old appropriations bills for an extra couple of days.

To give us time to figure out what we're doing on a permanent basis.

Ordinarily, you don't see a continuing resolution pass.

Well, certainly not in this fashion.