Congress is in the midst of another shutdown showdown. To fully grasp the stakes of this moment, it’s helpful to rehash what the government funding process usually looks like, how this year was different, and what that all means for what might happen next. 

That’s what I’ll walk through below—organized as best I can to make it easy for folks who don’t want to recap this year to skip ahead! 

As always, I welcome your feedback. Thanks for reading.

The main thing you need to know about appropriations—that is, the process by which the federal government goes about spending money—is that, usually, the House and the Senate write their own versions of 12 appropriations bills that fund different parts of the federal government. The House and Senate must come up with a compromise version of those 12 bills and approve that compromise in both chambers, after which their agreement can go to the President and be signed into law. All of that must happen before the government runs out of money on September 30, the end of the fiscal year. 

Once the appropriations bills become law, they dictate how much funding particular federal agencies and programs can spend over the next year, what they can spend that funding on, and any restrictions agencies must abide by. 

Those appropriations laws are always bipartisan compromises, because before they become law, they have to pass both the House and the Senate. Almost every bill that goes through the Senate must get 60 votes to pass, and for the last decade-plus, no party has held a Senate majority that big—meaning, to hit that 60-vote threshold, at least a handful of minority party senators have to be onboard. 

Impoundment

That’s how things usually work. Here’s why this year is different. 

Folks might remember that back in January, a White House memo froze federal funding, blocking the flow of resources to families and communities without warning and causing immense confusion before a court blocked the freeze and the White House withdrew its memo.

The White House claimed to be targeting programs that “advance Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal social engineering policies.” The White House also insisted that “Social Security benefits, Medicare benefits, food stamps, welfare benefits, assistance that is going directly to individuals will not be impacted by this pause.”

Despite those claims, disruptions were reported to Medicaid, which provides health care to 72 million Americans; Head Start, where hundreds of thousands of kids go to preschool; veterans’ housing; and numerous other services individuals depend on.

There have been many, many events over the last nine months that have captured the country’s and the media’s attention—so, you’d be forgiven for assuming that this issue of the White House preventing federal funds from reaching communities had resolved itself. 

But that’s not the case.

The White House has continued to block or delay funding that Congress, by law, has directed the President to spend. This is known as “impoundment,” and it is illegal. Yet earlier this month, the House and Senate Appropriations Committee’s Democratic leaders released a report tracking more than $410 billion in funding that the White House continues to owe communities nationwide.

Rescissions 

But this massive impoundment scheme is not the only way the White House is straying from the normal appropriations process. It’s also using a special process called “rescissions.” When the President asks Congress to “rescind” federal funding, he’s asking them to claw back money that’s already been signed into law on a bipartisan basis. 

Earlier this year, the President asked Congress to rescind funding for foreign assistance and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR. 

Remember how earlier I said most bills need 60 votes to pass in the Senate? Well, rescissions bills are among those special exceptions that just need a simple majority vote for Senate approval. As a result, Republicans in Congress were able to approve a rescissions package in July, taking back $9 billion Congress itself had already allocated for specific programs. 

Notably, Republicans clawed back that public broadcasting money knowing it could mean shutting down public radio and TV stations, threatening life-saving emergency broadcasts that rural communities in particular depend on during disasters, like the July 4 weekend flash floods in Texas that killed at least 135 people. 

In fact, despite some Republicans’ reported concerns that these cuts could endanger their constituents during emergencies, GOP senators voted down an amendment to block the cut to public broadcasting if it threatened emergency services—less than two weeks after those deadly floods took place. 

Pocket rescissions

There’s another way that this year’s appropriations process is quite different from those in the past, and that’s because of yet another maneuver the White House is using to withhold funding Congress previously approved. This tactic is called “pocket rescissions.”

A moment ago, I talked about “rescissions,” the special process in which the President asks Congress to take back federal funding. Once the President makes that request, he can hold onto that funding for 45 days while Congress decides whether they’re going to rescind the money. 

But if the President sends his rescission request to Congress less than 45 days before the end of the fiscal year, when the money expires anyway, it’s a moot point. The fiscal year during which that money had to be spent is over, and the money never got spent. In short: it’s an end-run around Congress that lets the President decide on his own what spending laws he does or doesn’t follow, and it’s illegal. 

Nonetheless, the administration announced a pocket rescission last month, cancelling $4.9 billion in foreign assistance. While a lower court ordered the White House to spend the money in accordance with the law, the Supreme Court put a hold on that order. The hold remains in place—and, therefore, the funding remains in limbo—as the Supreme Court decides next steps.

This administration has repeatedly ignored appropriations laws, acting as judge and jury in deciding which legally-owed funds to withhold from communities. Republicans in Congress have, with few exceptions, yielded to the President rather than defend the laws they passed.  

This begs the question: how do Democrats enter into a government funding agreement with Republicans—an agreement that must be bipartisan under the Senate’s rules—knowing the President could ignore it and face virtually no GOP pushback? 

This is precisely the question Congress is reckoning with now.

On September 16, Republicans introduced a stopgap appropriations bill (also called a continuing resolution, or CR) to fund the government through November 21, the Friday before Thanksgiving, and to extend some government programs set to expire on September 30, like the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program and National Flood Insurance Program. It also provides extra money for federal officials’ personal security. 

Democratic leaders in Congress have condemned the CR for its failure to combat the President’s repeated disregard for spending laws. They’ve also criticized the CR on the grounds that it does not protect Americans’ health care. This is a reference to the massive Medicaid cuts Republicans made as part of their budget bill this summer, and the looming expiration of tax credits that help Americans afford health insurance. 

If Congress fails to renew those tax credits, 22 million Americans could see a massive spike in their insurance premiums: on average, premiums are expected to go up more than 75 percent. Americans living in rural areas will see an even bigger increase of 90 percent. An estimated 4 million Americans will become uninsured altogether.

As a result, Democrats in Congress are asking for a government funding bill that tackles these problems. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) phrased it as follows: 

“We need to start drawing lines in the sand about what kind of government we’re willing to fund and what kind of government we’re not willing to fund. To me, that means trying to stop the health care disaster that’s about to be visited on our communities, and building some protections into this budget that make it harder for Trump to get away with his lawlessness.”

The House will vote on the GOP-proposed CR in the next couple days. Republicans can pass it with just Republican votes—whether they will pass it with just Republican votes remains to be seen. 

If the House vote fails, it may force GOP leaders to negotiate with Democrats in order to get the CR over the finish line before September 30. If it passes, it will go to the Senate where, again, a handful of Democratic votes are necessary to hit the 60-vote threshold even if all 53 Senate Republicans support the CR. If the CR can’t get 60 votes in the Senate before September 30, the government will shut down. 

For a broad overview of what a government shutdown looks like, check out our explainer, FAQs about Government Shutdowns.

For now, I’ll share a few examples from the shutdown between December 22, 2018 and January 25, 2019 that illustrate how a government shutdown impacts Americans’ health and safety: 

• The Food and Drug Administration paused routine inspections, which endangered the public by allowing unsafe food or medical facilities to operate undetected. In the shutdown’s first weeks alone, the agency canceled more than 50 “high-risk” inspections, which typically involve food considered vulnerable to contamination like seafood, cheese, and vegetables. 
• More than 86,000 immigration court hearings were canceled, delaying immigration proceedings for people who may have been waiting for their day in court for years and worsening an already substantial case backlog. 
• The National Park Service stopped trash collection and road repairs, which allowed unsanitary conditions to fester and dangerous roads to remain in use. Some parks closed entirely, as did the Smithsonian museums, the National Zoo, and the National Gallery of Art, disrupting families’ travel plans and costing the government revenue it would otherwise collect from fees and souvenir and concession sales. 

If the proposed CR passes, the government will remain open through November 21, at which point this debate will likely play out again—but with lawmakers eager to head home for Thanksgiving. 

This CR’s passage also means that Americans will likely start getting notices to renew their health insurance for 2026 and—in the absence of congressional action on premium tax credits—seeing much higher premiums.

On top of that, the risk remains that the White House will continue to flout the law and withhold  resources it is legally obligated to send to communities. Again, the administration continues to owe communities more than $410 billion for VA hospitals, natural disaster relief, cancer screenings, road and bridge repairs, and much more. If Congress fails to act and get this funding to the public, there’s no indication that the White House won’t at least continue to block resources communities need—if not target more. (Source:  CPCC, 9/17)

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