“Nothing Resolved. Everything Still on the Table.”
Everyone is so relieved that a shutdown was prevented….that there hasn’t been much focus on how Congress has once again “kicked the can down the road” and has done nothing to make negotiations easier between now and January 19.
The previous Analysis and Commentary (November 14, Shutdown threats: Second Verse Same As the First; FDA Budget Still At Risk) looked at two aspects of the situation:
The short-term priority for FDA is avoiding a government shutdown on November 17 and creating a pathway for the orderly consideration of the FY 24 Ag/FDA appropriations bill,
The near- and long-term priority for FDA is to continue the flow of needed funding that is commensurate with FDA’s growing responsibilities.
No shutdown on November 17. That went well. The new deadline is January 19.
Creation of a pathway for orderly consideration of the FY 24 Ag/FDA appropriations. There’s a new deadline, but there’s nothing to suggest that the next iteration is likely to be more orderly or successful than this one has been.
Continue the flow of monies commensurate with FDA’s growing responsibilities. The best case appears to be a small increment over current funding. That itself would not preserve current program levels because of mandatory increases in salary and benefits. The worst (but unlikely) case would involve a nearly $500 million cut in FDA’s current BA funding level.
The Next Nine Weeks.
The Speaker (whoever is Speaker) has an unsolvable political problem getting 217 Republican votes on any given issue or process. His caucus is divided over spending levels, cuts to specific programs, and policy riders.
Unless something changes, Speaker Johnson will have the exact same problem on January 19 as he did on November 17 and as Speaker McCarthy had on September 30. If he doesn’t want to shut the government down, he will have to rely on Democratic votes. That being the case, he cannot deliver on the funding cuts and policy riders favored by the largest bloc of Republicans in the House.
Without an agreement on total spending and the allocation of those monies to specific spending bills, there really isn’t much to discuss over the next nine weeks. This problem is compounded by the many House policy riders that are DOA in the Senate.
For the Ag/FDA funding bill, there is a further complication of what bills will be part of any negotiation. The House Appropriations Committee-approved version of the bill has largely level funding; the version incorporating the Chairman’s amendment had a 14.15% cut across the board with the exception of WIC. However, that failed to pass on the House floor, hardly the bill you want to offer the Senate as representing the will of the House.
While this deadlock is likely to go past January 19, it cannot continue forever.
One possible variable involves defense spending, which is heavily constrained in the current situation, whether 1/ by the Continuing Resolution or 2/ by the 1% cutbacks imposed under FRA for the failure of Congress to pass all 12 appropriations bills.
In the past, defense hawks have often accepted increased spending on domestic programs as the price for gaining support for increased defense spending. Could this dynamic repeat? While House Republican support for defense does not seem as strong as in past years, it was reported that Senate Majority Leader Schumer would not sign off on laddered CR dates unless defense was in the later package.
There won’t be any progress until December, but we will be looking for any indication that the Ag/FDA bill will become law without massive cuts or intrusive riders.
Editorial Note:
The Analysis and Commentary section is written by Steven Grossman, Executive Director of the Alliance for a Stronger FDA.