Government shutdowns are never a good way to run the country. For it to happen just before the busy Thanksgiving holiday would make one even more disruptive to everyone during the holiday season affecting passports and the TSA, for example. It would have also stopped the flow of funding to our military since the Fiscal Year 2024 Defense Appropriations bill has not yet been agreed upon by both chambers of Congress and signed into law.
House Republicans have been working to put our nation on a much more responsible fiscal path by passing each individual appropriations bill to fund the federal government. When passing these one by one, we have more leverage to cut out wasteful spending and attach conservative policy riders to push back on the Biden Administration's radical agenda.
So far, the House has passed seven of the twelve annual spending bills funding more than 75 percent of Discretionary government spending. In comparison, the Democrat-led Senate has only passed three appropriations bills comprising only 17 percent of the Discretionary spending total.
(This is a good place to stop and state this reminder: Discretionary spending accounts for roughly 25% of the total federal budget. The other 75% is Mandatory Spending, also known as Entitlement Spending, and it is this spending that drives the debt just simply because it is the vast majority of all spending.)
The two-month CR passed this week allows the federal government to operate into the new year and prevents a bloated all-in-one appropriations package from being jammed on us right before the holidays as typically happens. Thousand-page end-of-the-year appropriations packages are not the way to govern, and this additional time will better enable the House and Senate to complete its work while ensuring the government remains open to provide vital services (meaning defense of the homeland, passports, etc.) for the American people. Between now and when the CR runs out, House Republicans will continue working to pass the remainder of the appropriations bills for FY 2024 and then negotiate with the Senate and White House to get these measures passed and signed into law.
While some believe shutdowns save money, the reality is shutdowns of any length cost taxpayers billions more than keeping the government operating because of all the contracts in place that are broken and then must be renegotiated as well as the many other extra costs incurred with a shutdown. Plus, unlike previous years when Defense Appropriations had been passed, a shutdown of Defense could be catastrophic above and beyond the extra cost given the threats we face on the world-stage.
By passing a CR, we avert a shutdown while proceeding with our work to negotiate the best spending packages that can be achieved in a divided government.
