Senate Leadership Confident FY23 Omnibus Can Pass Before Christmas

Senate Leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mitch McConnell (R-KY) have expressed optimism that the Senate can pass a FY23 omnibus package before a Dec 22 "hard deadline."

• McConnell: "Bipartisan negotiators are still working. I hope they're able to produce text of a bipartisan government funding bill that can pass the Senate before our hard deadline next Thursday."
• Schumer: "Negotiations keep trending in the right direction, but we still have a lot of work left to do [...] We should move quickly to avert a shutdown today..."
• It is still unclear whether McConnell has enough support amongst his caucus for passage of an omnibus. At least five Republican Senators have stated their opposition to rushing through an omnibus with Republicans set to take control of the House in January and pursue different spending priorities.
• McConnell confirms to reports that he will "pivot" and support a second short-term funding measure if omnibus negotiations don't produce a sufficiently bipartisan package of spending bills.
• Democrats require at least 10 GOP votes to send an omnibus to President Biden's desk and although Brinkmanship is likely to continue into next week, passage of the omnibus remains the most likely outcome.