Category Archives: Government

FY2024 Government Shutdown Averted

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President Biden has signed H.R. 5860, the continuing resolution to fund the government through November 2023, into law. Averting a government shutdown. 

Funding for the government would have run out at the end of the fiscal year 2023 at midnight Saturday.

However, on the final day of fiscal year 2023, the Senate unanimously agreed to take up the House-passed short-term funding bill on Saturday night, effectively ending the chance of a government shutdown this weekend and ”kicking the proverbial can” on big funding fights into November. The continuing resolution (CR) passed the House, 335–91, and the Senate, 88–9.

President Biden signed into law the 45-day stopgap funding measure, averting a government shutdown that would have been triggered at midnight.

Government shutdowns can cost the American economy billions of dollars as a wide range of federal functions are suspended. Essential workers, such as members of the military and air traffic controllers, continue to work without pay, but hundreds of thousands of others are furloughed.

U.S. Government Shutdown

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Government operations will begin to shut down at midnight on Saturday, September 30, 2023, unless lawmakers can agree on extending the current federal budget, a compromise that has been elusive for months.

The 2023 fiscal year ends on September 30th, and with it, so does the budget plan to keep almost all federal operations active.

Fights between Democrats and Republicans on future federal spending levels — and fights within the House GOP caucus itself — have not produced any likely plans so far to stave off an appropriations lapse. A government shutdown means millions of Americans won’t get the services they depend on. Federal workers won’t get their paychecks. People’s livelihoods will be upended.

A government shutdown would be the first to affect all federal agencies since 2013 when about 850,000 federal workers — about 40% of the government workforce — were furloughed for 16 days amid that congressional fight.

For the military, if lawmakers do not reach a short-term budget extension or full-year appropriations plan for government agencies by October 1, the resulting budget lapse will trigger the shutting down of non-essential military activities like family moves and some training operations.

Troops would still be required to report for duty but could miss their mid-October paychecks if the shutdown stretches from days to weeks. In 2013, just hours before a 16-day government shutdown triggered by political fights on Capitol Hill, lawmakers overwhelmingly passed special legislation to prevent that salary stoppage for troops.

References:

  1. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2023/09/25/government-shutdown-set-for-next-weekend-barring-surpise-budget-deal/