Shutdown Showdown Coming To a Head

With only 12 hours remaining in FY2023, the question of whether the government will be fully open tomorrow remains up in the air.  Neither the House nor the Senate has passed a Continuing Resolution to provide temporary funding while work continues on the 12 regular appropriations bills. Two efforts in the House failed in recent days and the Senate is still deciding exactly what will be in their bill.

If the House and Senate cannot pass a bill by midnight tonight that President Biden will sign into law, all government activities funded by annual appropriations will be suspended unless they are designated as exceptions, usually for public safety or national defense. The people who support those activities would still have to show up for work, but would not get paid until appropriations resume.

There’s still a chance, albeit remote, even at this late hour that agreement can be reached in time to avert a shutdown. It would likely require House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to work with Democrats, however, a move that almost certainly would trigger his harshest critics inside his own party, members of the House Freedom Caucus, to try and remove him as Speaker. They have thwarted two attempts to pass a CR even though they included draconian budget cuts for nondefense agencies that they wanted (8 percent in the first case, 30 percent the second time). Several have publicly said they have no problem with shutting down the government noting that programs like Social Security and Medicare, which do not require annual appropriations, will continue in any case.

But agencies like NASA would be deeply affected. NASA’s most recently published plan for an orderly shutdown, dated August 1, 2023, says 17,007 of the agency’s 18,310 employees would be furloughed. Those that would still have to work are 1,288 who are “necessary to protect life and property” and 15 who are paid by funds other than appropriations. Excepted activities include operating the International Space Station and other satellites already in space, space launch hardware processing activities that are necessary to prevent harm to life or property, and completing phase-down of research activities if a temporary suspension would cause serious damage to property. On Thursday, NASA added launch of the Psyche asteroid mission to the list of excepted activities allowed to continue no matter what. That launch was just delayed from October 5 to October 12 for unrelated reasons.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, a former member of the House and Senate, issued a statement yesterday warning of the consequences.

“If House Republicans force a shutdown, it will have devastating consequences for NASA, families across the country, and America’s global competitiveness.

“We are deciding what actions are needed in the event of a congressional Republican-led government shutdown. NASA will maintain the people to protect life and property – operational missions, such as satellites, landers, and rovers, as well as the International Space Station and its crew.” — Bill Nelson

Each affected agency has its own shutdown plans, but the bottom line is that a lot of government activities will be temporarily suspended, incurring restart costs once funding becomes available. Government workers will not be paid during the shutdown, but by law they will get back pay when appropriations resume. Contractors may or may not be required to work and may or may not get back pay.

A 2019 report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee concluded that the previous three shutdowns cost taxpayers nearly $4 billion.

Most Senate Republicans and Democrats do not want a shutdown and are crafting a bipartisan CR. The text has not been released yet, but word has it the CR will keep the government funded through November 17 at current (FY2023) spending levels and provide a temporary reauthorization of the FAA (whose authorization expires today) and deal with other critical time-sensitive matters. It also might include $6 billion for Ukraine, $6 billion for disaster relief, and $6 billion for border security (called the 6-6-6 package) although that is part of the negotiations.

House Democrats and some House Republicans, including McCarthy, do not want a shutdown. The question is whether he’s willing to risk his Speakership to avoid one. If just one person in his own party makes a “motion to vacate the chair,” he will have to stand again for election as Speaker as he did in January. That time 15 votes were required for his election. Typically Democrats vote for a Democrat to be Speaker and Republicans vote for a Republican. With the margin between the two parties so close (221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, 2 vacancies) just a handful of votes for someone other than McCarthy could doom his chances and several of the House Freedom Caucus members are fierce opponents and want someone else in the chair. At one point rumors were circulating that a few Democrats might help McCarthy out by voting for him to counteract the Freedom Caucus, but his decision to begin impeachment hearings against President Biden makes that much less likely.

Earlier this week McCarthy said he would not bring the Senate CR to the House for a vote regardless of what it says. Today, rumors are that he will introduce his own “clean” CR that keeps the government funded at current levels for 45 days and includes funding for disaster relief, but not Ukraine.

Whether he’s willing to rely on Democratic votes to pass it, how many he’d get if there’s nothing for Ukraine, and whether the Senate would agree are huge open questions.

Stay tuned.