Budget Showdown Scheduled for September

“President Joe Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy‘s debt deal should have made this fall’s incoming funding fight easier. Instead, the opposite has happened,” Politico reports.

“Congressional spending leaders who — in theory — could have used the spending cuts outlined in the bipartisan debt agreement now find themselves in a more onerous position as various factions on the Hill push to shirk the terms of the Biden-McCarthy deal. And senior lawmakers have only a narrow window to write a dozen spending bills that can pass both chambers, facing a tight time crunch less than four months before government funding runs out.”

“Several different groups of lawmakers are trying to revisit the debt deal’s funding caps. House conservatives, accusing McCarthy of backtracking on secret promises and cutting a bum deal with Biden, shut down the floor last week as they made the case for steeper slashes than the duo agreed to. Senate Republicans are searching for a way around the budget caps as well, to add cash for the Pentagon and Ukraine. And Democrats are looking for ways to ensure that priorities like disaster aid and immigration programs don’t get short shrift.”