M.I.A.: SPENDING TOPLINES. TIME FOR A HILL S.O.S.? Senate Appropriations Chair Patty Murray (D-Wash.) expected them “several weeks ago.” Her GOP counterpart, Maine Sen. Susan Collins, wanted them as a gift for her birthday last week. But “toplines” — the government spending levels that will shape any agreement to avert a shutdown next month — are nowhere to be seen on Capitol Hill. Which is a very bad sign. What does it mean? A toplines deal is a must-have before any talks can proceed, and one now looks highly improbable before the House and Senate gavel out for the holidays. Speaker Mike Johnson said Tuesday that his latest offer was sitting idle in the upper chamber. "We're awaiting the other team … to come forward with a number that we can agree upon, that we write to,” Johnson said. “And that's the impasse." If spending negotiations between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer slip into January, the risk of a shutdown will skyrocket. That’s in part because Murray and other Democrats are warning against the speaker’s threat of a funding patch through the end of the fiscal year if talks crumble. What you need to know: Congress hits the first of its two shutdown deadlines on Jan. 19, just 38 days from now. Before lawmakers can debate the nitty gritty of specific programs’ funding and sticky policy issues like federal funds for Planned Parenthood, the two parties need to agree on –
- An overall total for defense funding
- Another total for non-defense funding
- Ground rules for debating policy add-ons
- How “emergency” spending gets counted
It gets even more complicated: Since Republicans have sworn off the traditional “omnibus” bundling of a dozen annual spending bills, leaders might also need to agree on how to package the bills at the outset of the upcoming debate. After settling on a toplines framework, it typically takes weeks for Congress to debate the finer points, print bill text and whip enough support before an accord is shipped off to the president. But — and we don’t have to tell you this part — this Congress has been anything but typical. So Johnson and Schumer are already facing a significant time crunch, especially if negotiations on aid to Israel and Ukraine also spill into January (which looks all but guaranteed). We crunched the numbers for how long lawmakers have recently needed to pass final government funding deals after clinching toplines agreements: — Fiscal 2023: 10 days. (Framework struck on Dec. 13, bill cleared Dec. 23.) — Fiscal 2022: 30 days. (Framework struck on Feb. 9, bill cleared March 10.) — Fiscal 2021: 27 days. (Framework struck on Nov. 24, bill cleared Dec. 21.) Top Democrats say there’s nothing to negotiate this time around, since this summer’s bipartisan debt deal set the necessary budget totals to start reconciling the differences between the House and Senate’s separate spending bills. But Johnson is contending with conservatives who are demanding no federal money get spent outside the debt law’s limits, a demand that would rule out routine adjustments Congress makes that bend the boundaries of spending caps. Both Democratic and Republican appropriators, who’ve largely been left out of Johnson’s negotiations with the right, say it’s time to move on. Johnson has gotten “sidetracked” by hardliners, said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the top Democratic appropriator in the House. She added a prediction that “we’re headed to a government shutdown” without a deal soon: “They have to figure out what they want to do.” Collins said Tuesday evening that it’s “absolutely right” that a funding framework usually needs to be struck at least a month before the funding deadline. “So I’m getting very concerned about the absence of the topline agreement,” she added, noting that she and the other three appropriations leaders give input in the negotiations but aren’t allowed to take part in the talks. — Jennifer Scholtes and Caitlin Emma, with an assist from Katherine Tully-McManus and Daniella Diaz
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