Funding the Government

Congress has just over a month to pass some sort of spending bill to avoid a shutdown of the federal government on April 29. But the window is actually much shorter than that, because the House and Senate are scheduled to take a two-week recess for Easter in the middle of the month. Once lawmakers return, they’ll have just a week to strike a deal and pass a bill that would cover the rest of the fiscal year that ends on September 30.

Any legislation would be subject to a 60-vote threshold in the Senate, giving Democrats significant leverage in negotiations. While there have been discussions about an omnibus appropriations bill, the likeliest outcome is a continuing resolution that would maintain spending levels set during the final budget agreement of the Obama administration. But once the two parties agree on money, there may be a fight over policy. Conservatives, for example, are expected to push to defund Planned Parenthood, which party leaders had hoped would be taken care of in the health-care bill. That effort could force Trump to take sides between the Freedom Caucus and Democrats who have fought to protect the women’s health nonprofit. And moderate Republicans have already grown wary of injecting the politics of abortion and contraception into spending debates.

With Republicans in power, Democrats could be in the position of shutting down the government by blocking legislation in the Senate. But emboldened by the GOP’s divisions and Trump’s low approval ratings, they may gamble that the public would be more likely to associate a shutdown with the party that has historically been more antagonistic toward government.

Paying for the Border Wall

As part of the short-term funding debate, Trump has asked Congress for an immediate appropriation of $30 billion to boost defense spending and another $3 billion to start construction of the wall along the border with Mexico. And he wants lawmakers to find $18 billion in cuts to domestic agencies to offset the new spending.

The president might get some money for the military, but Democrats (and some Republicans) have already signaled they’ll put up a fight on the border wall and domestic budget cuts. “It shouldn’t be rammed down people’s throats,” Schumer said Sunday on ABC’s This Week. The Democratic leader has already started needling Trump about the fact that he’s asking taxpayers to fund the wall when he assured voters that Mexico would fork over the money. (Mexico will ultimately pay the bill in some form, the White House has been saying lately.)

And as Schumer pointed out, a number of Republicans representing districts along the border have begun speaking out against Trump’s proposal, noting that a wall doesn’t make sense in certain geographical areas and that the government would need to assert eminent domain and seize private property in other places. “My prediction,” Schumer said, “it wouldn't get the votes on either the Democratic or Republican side.”