No shutdown, but no 2025 appropriations either
"There was planning underway that they canceled very late on Friday night when it looked like the Senate was ready to pass this as it did," said Loren Duggan.
The government won’t shut down. But it doesn’t get 2025 appropriations either. That will have to wait until March under the continuing resolution hammered out at the 11 hour Friday night. The Federal Drive with Tom Temin got an update now from Bloomberg Government deputy news director Loren Duggan.
Interview transcript:
Tom Temin This is about as close as I’ve seen it come and avoid that shutdown. How about that?
Loren Duggan It was very close. And there was planning underway that they canceled very late on Friday night when it looked like the Senate was ready to pass this as it did. But yeah, we came pretty close to having at least a technical shutdown or maybe a real one had it gone past the weekend.
Tom Temin Right. And we know the president actually did sign it on Saturday, so they were standing by. Somebody at the White House was ready to receive this, I guess.
Loren Duggan That’s right. And the president already endorsed what they were doing. So that makes it when OMB sees is a bill moving, the president’s going to sign it. They can stop the actual execution of the shutdown that they would have had to start had something not been passed.
Tom Temin And it looks like nobody got everything they wanted. The Trump administration incoming didn’t get its debt ceiling doodad, but then there were some things in the gigantic 1500 page bill that Democrats didn’t get either. Fair way to characterize it?
Loren Duggan Yeah. A lot was left on the cutting room floor from that 1500 page bill that was released on the Tuesday night that was then swept aside. Some things got pulled out and moved separately. RFK Stadium, the bill that would transfer that from the federal government to D.C. so that they could do what they want there to maybe lure the commanders back into town that survived, but as a separate bill. But a lot of the things that were in there, including a pretty lengthy workforce development package and some other things that have been negotiated, did fall out. And as you mentioned, Donald Trump said that he wanted the debt limit taken care of. That was not done. So we are facing the lifting of the suspension and some debate next year about what to do with that, which will complicate all the other things that they want to do, if that is a protracted discussion.
Tom Temin Yes, that comes up, it’s a separate matter often. And then there’s dire threats of the end of civilization if they don’t lift the debt ceiling. And maybe they’re right, but we don’t want to find out.
Loren Duggan No one wants to get there and the lifting of the suspension at the first of the year doesn’t really mean anything, because the Treasury Department has some maneuvering they call them extraordinary measures. They’ll tap into those, but pretty quickly, they’ll have to do something about this probably by the middle of next year. That date’s kind of a floating target, but you’ll definitely be seeing this again early next year.
Tom Temin And even though it was a fairly clean continuing resolution, a couple of things in there that were actually important that everybody wanted on both sides. Let’s talk about that relief bill. How much was that and when will that start getting dispersed?
Loren Duggan Yeah, that was a more than $100 billion package that they negotiated. And it’s dating back to things like the Maui wildfires, but also some of the hurricanes and tropical storms more recently. And then also language in there to deal with the collapsed bridge in Baltimore. There would be a 100% federal share for that. So federal government’s going to pick up the bill, but at the same time, they can recoup money that comes in from the company that owned the ship and things like that. So pretty big package there, the people in North Carolina, the members there, have been fighting hard to get this done because of the recent incidents down there. So a lot of money going to start flowing through different agencies. FEMA gets the most, but it’s also going to go through the Transportation Department. There’s some HUD funding through the Community Development Block grant program. So lots of different agencies will get a piece of that important money.
Tom Temin Right in that bridge is going to be a multibillion dollar operation when they finally start laying the groundwork for a new bridge. So that’s a big deal for the Maryland delegation then really getting that bridge paid for just like that.
Loren Duggan Absolutely. It’s a really big deal for them. They’ve been fighting for that for several months now. And that got slipped into this package along with the other grant money and different types of money that will flow through.
Tom Temin All right. And then the farm bill, that’s the other piece that was kind of critical to at least the normal operation of government and to the programs that have been running for a long time.
Loren Duggan Yeah. There was a yearlong extension of that, that was part of this continuing resolution. It’s a separate authorization matter. This isn’t about the funding necessarily, but without something by the end of the year, some really old 1930s, 1940 style laws would have come back into effect. So this will give them until Sept. 30, for some programs longer for others that run on a crop year. But it keeps those programs working so that Congress can, when they come back next year, start that work over again with Republicans in both chambers in the lead. Whereas for this year we had Republicans in the House, Democrats in the Senate. So that’s going to be a dynamic playing out in a lot of areas, obviously.
Tom Temin Right. Nobody knows precisely what will happen in the tariff front and in the export front when it comes to crops. So there could be a lot of debate ahead on that. We just don’t know the shape of it or the contours of it yet.
Loren Duggan That’s right. And that’s even separate from these farm bill programs, which the biggest one in here is SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly food stamps. That’s usually the biggest chunk of money and can be some of the political drama there. But a lot of this is about the aid to farmers and different crop programs, things like that.
Tom Temin And we’re speaking with Loren Duggan. He’s deputy news director at Bloomberg Government. And what about DoD under the CR? Just the straight CR or they got a few little goodies also.
Loren Duggan They got a few things, a little bit of higher funding for things like the Columbia class ballistic missile submarine. They got 5.7 in emergency funding for a fast attack submarine program and for nuclear workers and things like that. So there were a few adjustments that were needed because DoD is often one of the things that drives them to get a bill done, a full year bill. Obviously, they’re not going to get that until March. So they needed to do a few things in here to help DoD out in this period covered by the CR, which is going to be almost half the year if they get it done by March 14, they’ll be half the year if they need more time. Obviously, that would stretch beyond that.
Tom Temin Yeah. What’s the magic in March 14 of all dates that could have picked.
Loren Duggan I think it’s sort of the end of this first work period that they have set for themselves. Come in to the inauguration and start with all that. So they’re giving themselves two and a half months, which they could get it done. And then if everything lines up, but as we saw a demand or a request from the incoming Trump administration could make that more of a challenge. We’ll just have to see what the dynamics are.
Tom Temin There and safe to say they are out of town, officially out of the Capitol, officially now on break for Christmas week.
Loren Duggan That’s right. They’ll be gone Christmas week, start coming back the week with New Year’s, because Friday, Jan. 3 is the start of the new Congress. So they really have to hit the ground running in 2025 to get to work, get themselves sworn in and elect a speaker and do all the things they need to do there to get the new year up and running. So one quiet week and then one ramping up week, if you will.
Tom Temin And it almost went by with nobody noticing but the National Defense Authorization Act for 2025.
Loren Duggan That got done this week. I think it was quieter because the House had passed it. The Senate then cleared it in the middle of the week, but that took a little bit of time. But it’s all done and on the way to the president and likely to be signed at this point. So that piece of legislation will be taken care of.
Tom Temin So the abnormality looked normal, you might say, in with respect to regular order, forget about that. But irregular irregularity held once again.
Loren Duggan Exactly. There was a book many years ago, unorthodox lawmaking, where seem to be there all the time with things happening in their own way, shape and form. But they get it done one way or the other.
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Tom Temin
Tom Temin is host of the Federal Drive and has been providing insight on federal technology and management issues for more than 30 years.
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