Risk Of Government Shutdown In 2024 High, As Congress Winds Down 2023

As Congress wraps up 2023, observers are starting to look more closely as the next looming government funding crisis.

• The House of Representatives returns to session on January 9. This timeline, if adhered to, provides 10 days to legislate and reconcile the first four FY24 bills before hitting the first shutdown deadline (Agriculture, Energy and Water, MilCon-VA and THUD).
• This timeline looks highly challenging considering House Republican leadership has yet to release their FY24 topline spending number. The process will also be complicated by a potential vote on supplemental funding for Ukraine and Israel, if that is punted into next year.
• Punchbowl News notes: “It seems improbable, to put it mildly, that the two chambers can come to agreement on all four of these bills by Jan. 19. Johnson has said he won’t pass another short-term CR. So what are his options? A government shutdown or a yearlong CR. Neither is terribly attractive.”
• It is also notable that the 118th Congress has been the, "least productive legislative year since at least 1973,” according to data from the Washington Post and GovTrack.
• The instability of the Republican majority in the House, which could shrink to two votes after a February 13 special election to fill the vacant seat of expelled former-Republican rep George Santos, is seen as contributing to the gridlock in Congress and empowering the Conservative bloc who have been increasingly opposed to the traditional appropriations process.