This Shutdown Deadline Drama is Not Normal 

If the current appropriations process feels especially chaotic this time around, you are absolutely correct. Here’s why: 

• With the clock ticking on a seven-week temporary government funding resolution, the House spent three weeks trying to elect a new Speaker, instead of negotiating and passing appropriations bills. 

• In one of his first official acts, the new Republican Speaker, Mike Johnson, forced a vote on legislation to cut $14 billion from the IRS, which has nothing to do with avoiding a shutdown. 
• House Republicans can’t agree on a plan for another CR and keep pushing funding bills with massive cuts to agency budgets, knowing they are not in line with the deal they made earlier this year and will never be accepted by the Senate or the President. 
• Finally, one option the Speaker suggested is another continuing resolution of spending cuts and rolling deadlines so bizarre that it left many members of his own party confused. 

So here we are. The continuing resolution keeping government open expires at midnight Nov. 17, leaving Congress nine days to avoid a shutdown.  

While the Senate has passed appropriations bills with bipartisan support that adhere to the spending levels already agreed upon by both Democrats and Republicans earlier this year, the new House leadership team continues to violate the terms of that deal and push for poison pill policy riders and spending cuts deep enough to cause furloughs.  

The situation is bleak, but there is still time. Once again, we must unite and ask Congress to provide agencies with the funding they need to ensure you can do your work serving the American people and avoid a shutdown. 

Elected officials need to stop playing politics and do their jobs so you can do yours!