Editors at National Review Online assess the latest political games surrounding federal government operations.
We find ourselves in a familiar place: If Republicans and Democrats do not reach an agreement by the end of Friday, there will be a partial government shutdown. The smart money in Washington is usually on some sort of last-minute deal being cobbled together, but there is still a long way to go before we get to that point.
The House of Representatives on Tuesday night, in a narrow 217-213 vote, passed a continuing resolution that would keep the government funded until the end of the fiscal year, which is on September 30. But now the matter is in the hands of the Senate, which has a 60-vote threshold, and thus, Republicans will need at least seven Democrats to sign on.
We reiterate our long-standing position that making policy from crisis to crisis, from one stopgap funding measure to the next, is no way to govern. There are serious fiscal challenges facing the nation that require steady, boring, legislative work, and there should be a more orderly budget process.
That said, the current reality is that President Trump and the new Republican Congress took over months into the fiscal year, with the government operating under a short-term spending agreement that had been cobbled together at the end of the Biden administration. Allowing the government to shut down would not save any money, since furloughed workers would be entitled to back pay, nor is it likely to lead to a better deal. Thus, the most responsible thing to do would be to pass legislation that gets the government through the year, allowing lawmakers to prepare for the first full year of the new administration.
The House-passed bill would increase funding for defense, veterans’ affairs, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and offset that with some cuts to non-defense domestic spending. While this is all sensible, less so is a rules package Republicans passed in conjunction with the CR that aims to block a vote on Trump’s tariffs.
