Sep 21, 2020
Pelosi’s Funding Bill Lacks GOP Farm Aid, Raising Shutdown Risk
, Bloomberg News
(Bloomberg) -- Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats are set to release a stopgap government funding bill Monday without support from the White House or Senate Republicans, raising the risk of a federal shutdown at the end of the month.
The bill would extend current levels of spending for agencies past the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year, through Dec. 11. But it doesn’t include $30 billion for farm aid that the White House had sought and which Democrats want to negotiate as part of separate stimulus negotiations, according to aides in both parties.
Senate Republicans from farm states pushed for the $30 billion to replenish funding for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Commodity Credit Corp., a government-owned entity that aims to stabilize farm income. President Donald Trump announced $13 billion in new aid to farmers, drawing from the CCC, at a rally in Wisconsin on Thursday, and the corporation had already projected an increase in demand for agriculture-risk coverage, price-loss coverage, and marketing-assistance loans.
The stopgap government funding bill, known as a continuing resolution, had been the subject of negotiations among Democratic and Republican congressional leaders along with the White House, and other aspects of the legislation were said to be resolved. Democrats floated the possibility of providing the farm funds in exchange for $2 billion in child-nutrition money on Friday, before Pelosi called Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to cancel the tradeoff, according to aides.
The House bill set to be released will also leave out the child-nutrition money, for a program that runs out at the end of the month.
House leaders have been planning for a vote this week on the stopgap, and then it will be up to the Republican-majority Senate to act before Sept. 30. Without the CCC money, the Senate could try to block and amend the House stopgap, leading to a confrontation just before the deadline. A showdown over border-wall funding led to a 35-day shutdown of the U.S. government in late 2018 and early 2019.
Pelosi and Mnuchin had agreed earlier this month to keep talks on a coronavirus relief package separate from the funding bill. Those stimulus talks have stalled since early August, with the two sides about $1 trillion apart in their offers.
©2020 Bloomberg L.P.
