November 12, 2024
Welcome to the lame duck session of Congress. With a new president on the horizon and government shutdown looming these next five weeks are going to be extremely interesting…so interesting I’m pulling out the white board.
First – let me clear up two things –one — I’m not insulting anyone – lame duck is literally what this time period is called in Washington DC – between an election and the swearing in of a new congress. And two you have to understand which congress I’m talking about. I’m talking about the exact same congress we’ve had for the last two years. Where Democrats control the Senate and Republicans narrowly control the House with one of the slimmest voting majorities in history. The new congress that was elected last week will not take power until January of 2025.
Priority number one for this lame duck congress – avoiding the government shutdown that’s scheduled for December 20th. Because this congress failed to do their job in September, we’re here. Two months into the fiscal year and no spending plan. So — both the House and the Senate –will now have to figure out how to keep the government open, how to fund each of the departments and what programs will fall by the wayside. That includes whether or not to add significant new funding for FEMA and disaster relief after those hurricanes.
Now what’s interesting about this spending decision happening now – is whatever this congress decides will affect President Trump’s first eight months in office. That’s because the government’s fiscal calendar runs from October 1 to September 30th. It does not run January to January. So what they decide now will be the law through September 30th of 2025. And because of that there’s about to be some political maneuvering that we’re all going to see in real time.
Now stay with me here – we know Republicans in congress right now want to keep all their options on the table and give Trump all the government spending options when he comes into power on January 20th. That’s because they too will come into power in the Senate and possibly the House too.
But in order to avoid the December 20th government shutdown they have two options. One – cut a deal with Democrats now to get a government spending plan for the rest of this fiscal year and avoid the government shutdown. Or two – pass another continuing resolution –which Republicans say they hate — to temporarily keep the government open until possibly march – that way they can come up with a government spending plan for the remaining six months of the fiscal year and do not have to listen to one single Democrat because the Republicans will control the Senate, the White House and possibly the House too. I’ll give you one guess which one they’re pushing.
Of course – Democrats in the Senate will obviously have a problem with that plan – but they also don’t like government shutdowns – so we’ll have to see how that plays out. And how much President Elect Trump puts his thumb on the scale.
