With 11 days until a partial government shutdown, House and Senate leaders have not made meaningful progress toward a budget deal. The Republican-controlled House has passed seven of 12 appropriations bills, but the partisan nature of the bills makes them unlikely to pass in the Democrat-controlled Senate.

What You Need To Know

  • Congress has 11 days to pass a budget or another stopgap measure before the government partially shuts down

  • House Republicans passed seven appropriations bills that include deep spending cuts unpopular with Democrats

  • House Republicans are also pushing to pass each appropriations bill separately, which could potentially cause further delays

House Democrats said they were concerned that the funding measures were too partisan to be negotiated with Senate Democratic leadership and signed by President Joe Biden in time to avert a shutdown on Nov. 17.

Several of the appropriation bills that House Republicans have passed or proposed include deep spending cuts that face opposition from Democrats.

“Extreme MAGA Republicans are focused on loading up these appropriations bills with their right-wing ideological wish list, and that is why the House is unable to function at this moment,” Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said at a press conference in September.

House Republicans acknowledged their bills likely would not pass in the Senate as-is, but said that was part of the negotiation process.

“The idea that Republicans are going to come here and pass bills that look like Republicans are in the majority in the House is the expectation. That’s why we won the majority,” said Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio.

The Senate has passed three appropriations bills so far. They were negotiated by both parties in committee, however, so the final bipartisan bills have a better chance of quickly passing in the House.

The next step in the budget process is finding a compromise between the House and Senate versions of each funding measure.

However, the Senate bills were passed together as one “minibus” package, while House Republicans want to negotiate each bill separately, citing accountability concerns.

“Republicans are broadly united—and this was a big part of what led into the speaker fight—by saying no, we are going to break the status quo,” said Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio. “We’re not going to do a Christmas omnibus. We’re going to have debates about the differences in the bills. Ideally each of the 12 bills will have its own conference report.”

In a time of hyper partisan politics, each bill encompasses divisive policies that could drag out negotiations. Multiplied by 12, the prospects are slim for passing a final budget by the Nov. 17 deadline.

Davidson was among two Ohio House members to vote against the continuing resolution that passed in late September with large bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

Now, though, he said he would support another stopgap measure to last through Jan. 15 because of a law that he called “a change in the status quo.” The Fiscal Responsibility Act, passed in June, requires that if new appropriations are not passed by the new year, spending caps will be cut by 1% until the budgets are passed.

“There are things like that that you could do that are short term measures that do change the status quo, so I’d be willing to look at those,” Davidson said.