House Reps Gloomy About Averting Govt Shutdown

NOTUS reports:

Republicans are already staring down the possibility of a politically disastrous government shutdown, with funding set to run out on March 14 and lawmakers seeing little reason for any optimism. “The clock is ticking and running away from us right now,” senior appropriator Rep. Steve Womack told NOTUS on Thursday. The March 14 deadline, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole told NOTUS this week, is “getting here faster than I would like.”

Cole said top appropriators in both chambers are currently haggling over a topline spending number for the rest of the current fiscal year, which is already over four months overdue. The goal of these talks is to resolve a $90 billion discrepancy between the House and Senate’s committee-approved appropriations bills and to come up with, as Cole put it, a “magic topline.” But with Republicans and Democrats still so far apart, that topline is looking more magical and far-fetched by the day.

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