House and Senate negotiators reach agreement to prevent shutdown – report

With government funding set to partially expire on Friday, House and Senate negotiators have reached an agreement to prevent a shutdown, Politico reported.

Under the reported terms of the deal, some government agencies will have their funding extended through 8 March while others will face a 22 March funding deadline. Funding had previously been set to expire at 12:01am on Saturday for roughly 20% of the federal government, and the remaining agencies only had enough money to last them through next Friday.

With that added breathing room provided by the short-term deal, lawmakers will continue their negotiations over full-year spending bills. If passed, the short-term funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, would mark the fourth such stopgap measure approved since September.

Hard-right Republican lawmakers have voiced frustration with the short-term funding measures, but ongoing disagreements over some controversial proposals in the appropriations bills have complicated talks over the full-year bills. After meeting with Joe Biden at the White House on Tuesday, the House speaker, the Republican Mike Johnson, expressed confidence that members could reach an agreement and avoid a shutdown.

“We have been working in good faith around the clock every single day, for months and weeks and over the last several days, quite literally around the clock to get that job done. We’re very optimistic,” Johnson told reporters. “We believe that we can get to agreement on these issues and prevent a government shutdown. And that’s our first responsibility.”

The Senate majority leader, the Democrat Chuck Schumer, echoed Johnson’s assessment while acknowledging that another short-term funding bill would be necessary to prevent a lapse in federal funding.

“The speaker said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown,” Schumer said. “We made it clear that that means not letting any of the government appropriations bills lapse, which means you need some CRs to get that done. But we’re making good progress, and we’re hopeful we can get this done really quickly.”

A shutdown would have forced many federal employees to go without pay until Congress passed another funding bill, and while that disruption has been avoided for now, the threat will arise again in the coming weeks.