House conservatives support summer omnibus to pre-empt shutdown fight

The Republican Study Committee on Friday threw its weight behind taking up legislation to fund the government for 2018 before the August recess, an unusual move that would pre-empt the normal budgetary process.

Instead, Congress has generally consolidated measures into one larger omnibus spending bill, which is frequently cobbled together behind closed doors to avert looming shutdowns. Most recently, an omnibus was passed in May to fund the government for the rest of the 2017 fiscal year, which ends in September.

{mosads}Conservatives have bristled at the process, arguing that it blocks out their priorities and maintains the status quo.

“The game of financial and political brinksmanship has yielded few, if any, victories for conservatives,” said Republican Study Chairman Mark Walker (N.C.) said.

“We cannot keep punting this problem and should be proactive rather than reactive. The House should have an amendment process that gives members the ability to improve the legislation,” he added.

In May, The Hill reported that senior appropriators were pushing leadership for an early omnibus, urging them to “go ugly early.”

But taking up the government’s spending issues in the summer would require fitting one more priority into an already-packed agenda that includes repealing and replacing ObamaCare, raising the debt ceiling and gearing up for tax reform.

Rep. Tom Graves (R-Ga.), who chairs the Appropriations financial services subcommittee and has championed the idea of an early omnibus, admitted at the time that moving such a bill forward “would be a Herculean task.”