An Update
So I've been extremely absent here
I had been hoping to post at least one item a month and have completely fallen off these past few months. This is due to a few different things - my household got hit with quite a run of cold/flu/strep related things in October & November, work has gotten much busier, and the typical holiday hassles. However, I have been writing. Just not here. My other side writing project is a fiction story based on a mix of pulp adventure games and magic that I’ve been working on for a couple of years. This fall I finally knuckled down and finished the first draft of the manuscript. It’s topic is completely out of the bounds of this substack, so I won’t be subjecting anyone here to it, but it is finished and complete. I expect I’ll keep working on a second (and probably a third book) to get through to the end of our adventure but for now I hope to pivot to more writing here. If you’re interested in reading the draft manuscript, feel free to contact me directly (nhdemocrat@gmail.com).
Today’s writing was prompted with the release on Friday night of an agreement between House and Senate appropriators of 302(b) funding levels. This is the amount of money going towards each of the twelve appropriations bills Congress must pass to provide funding for FY 2024. For those of you who haven’t been paying close attention (and, really, that’s probably a healthier way to live), Congress has still not passed funding for Fiscal Year 2024, which began back on October 1st. Due to disputes over funding levels, the defenestration of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and resistance from new Speaker Mike Johnson, the government has been operating under a series of continuing resolutions (CRs) for the past four months. The current CR is a “staggered” CR, which means funding for four of the appropriations bills only runs until March 1st, while the remaining 8 bills lapse on March 8th. It is likely that they will need yet another CR to complete their work, putting major strain on the federal government as it will likely spent over half of FY 2024 under a CR.
I believe that they will need a CR for the simple reason that while topline spending for each appropriation bill has now been agreed to, there remains no agreement on specific funding levels for the various departments and agencies covered within each funding bill. Similarly, the bills marked up in the House of Representatives feature a variety of policy riders - enforced changes to roll back various Biden administration initiatives by tying the ability of the government to spend money to changes supported by House Republicans. Given the extremely narrow majority that Speaker Johnson presides over, angering any significant block of House Republicans would risk his speakership and many House conservatives are already in an uproar over his agreeing to maintain spending at the levels set by last year’s debt ceiling deal. Needless to say, he will be in no hurry to put funding bills on the floor that will anger a significant part of his caucus.
Even if the House wasn’t a mess, it simply takes time to pass individual bills. Both chambers have committed to debating the individuals pieces of legislation (either individually or as part of a collection of bills) rather than passing a huge omnibus. It will take days of legislative time in Senate for even one bill to move forward. Last August, Senate leadership agreed to put on the floor and pass a minibus of fairly non-controversial legislation. It was not adopted until November. The idea that they’re going to quickly work through all twelve bills now is nonsense. So, I would expect yet another CR to carry spending into April for the current year.
As someone who spends a lot of time and intellectual effort understanding the President’s budget request, this is dispiriting because it will undoubtedly impact the ability of the White House to release a budget. The White House normally waits for appropriations to be agreed to before releasing the budget, so it is entirely possible that we will not see a new defense budget until April or even May of 2024. That will give Congress roughly five months to pass more appropriations before the start of FY 2025, something they will almost certainly fail to do. This is no way to run a country.