Hoyer: Short-term funding bill possible

Disagreements between lawmakers negotiating a sweeping year-end spending proposal have upped the odds that Congress will need a short-term patch to fund the government until a broader package is approved, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday.

Hoyer, the Democratic whip, said he’s not involved in the current discussions over the Republican spending package. But with government funding set to expire Thursday night — and with the Republicans yet to introduce a bill — Hoyer said a short-term fix might be necessary to prevent a government shutdown.

{mosads}Asked how likely it is that Congress will need a two- or three-day continuing resolution (CR) to bridge the gap to a larger deal, Hoyer said, “More likely than it was yesterday.”

“Even if we’ve reached a deal on Thursday, you need to keep the government open,” Hoyer told reporters during his weekly press briefing in the Capitol. “We’ve done that before, both Republicans and Democrats.”

He emphasized that Democratic leaders haven’t discussed that strategy specifically. And Republicans are insisting the government-funding measure will emerge on Tuesday, in time for the House to vote on it Thursday and get out of town for the long holiday recess.

But the time crunch might force a short-term funding patch, if only to lend the Senate time to act on the House-passed bill.

“I don’t think that will be … particularly controversial,” Hoyer said. “You know, there’s got to be a deal first. But if there’s a deal, I think there will be not a great difficulty” passing a short-term CR.

Hoyer’s comments came as congressional leaders are still haggling over what to include in their “cromnibus” bill. 

Sen. Charles Schumer (N.Y.), the third-ranking Senate Democrat, and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who heads the Financial Services Committee, were close to a deal to include language reauthorizing the 2002 Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA), which expires Dec. 31. 

But Democrats balked at Hensarling’s effort to attach a provision they say would undermine financial protections established by the 2010 Wall Street reform law. The impasse forced GOP leaders to remove the TRIA language from the overall package early Tuesday afternoon and send it to the Rules Committee as a stand-alone measure

Hoyer on Tuesday endorsed the TRIA bill absent Hensarling’s provision and predicted it would pass easily as a stand-alone bill.

The Republican spending measure is being called a “cromnibus” because it funds most of the federal government through next September with an omnibus package of 11 appropriations bills while providing money for the Homeland Security Department (DHS) only until mid-February through a CR. The shorter window for DHS funding is aimed to allow Republicans an early crack next year at the agency overseeing President Obama’s executive action deferring deportations. 

Democrats oppose the two-tiered strategy, warning of the threat to national security if the DHS shuts down early next year. But the critics have also suggested that strategy is not a deal-breaker. They’re warning instead of conservative amendments, or “riders,” that many Republicans want to tack on to the must-pass bill.

Expected GOP defections have given some leverage to Hoyer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and other Democrats, whose votes will likely be needed to pass the spending package through the lower chamber. 

But with the top-line funding number already agreed upon, Hoyer suggested Democrats would use their leverage simply to prevent an outpouring of conservative amendments, rather than insist on any liberal additions of their own. 

“I could probably come up with a lot of things that I’d like to see included,” he said. “But I have not weighed in heavily on behalf of any of those particular items, because my overall argument is you ought to make this as clean as possible.”