President Joe Biden and congressional leaders announced Tuesday that they have reached an agreement on this fiscal year’s final set of spending bills. Now, the question is how fast lawmakers can get the bills passed to avoid a partial government shutdown.
While Biden said he’ll sign the bill package as soon as he receives it, time is running short. Legislative staff needs time to finish the bill text, an arduous task. The House has a rule that lawmakers get 72 hours to review a bill before voting. And the Senate has never been known for its ability to sprint. Meanwhile, funding for several key agencies expires at midnight Friday.
“We have come to an agreement with Congressional leaders on a path forward for the remaining full-year funding bills,” Biden, a Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday morning. “The House and Senate are now working to finalize a package that can quickly be brought to the floor, and I will sign it immediately.”
The government is consistently held hostage by Republican intransigence, we’re constantly veering from one shutdown to the next for a decade now, because Republicans do not want the federal government to function … at all, so that they can then point to their constituents how the government isn’t functioning when they ask for their votes. It’s absurd the United States government should exist under the constant threat of running out of money. We live in the stupidest of time.