The House is preparing to vote on a Continuing Resolution-Minibus appropriations bill which passed the Senate on Monday. The bill, if passed and signed into law, would reopen the government by providing full-year appropriations for Agriculture, Legislative Branch, and Military Construction-Veterans Affairs while extending current funding for the remaining appropriations bills and certain expiring programs. While the reopening package in its current form does not extend expiring enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies or withdraw Medicaid savings from the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), as some lawmakers had been pursuing, it effectively codifies $3.4 trillion of new borrowing by wiping the Pay-As-You-Go (PAYGO) scorecard and provides for additional deficit increases until the end of the current Congress. Additionally, a reported agreement alongside the reopening package allows for a vote on health care legislation in December, the parameters – and offsets – of which are not yet specified. The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget: This government shutdown accomplished nothing and caused significant harm to many individuals, not to mention our reputation around the world. During this shutdown, policymakers gave new meaning to fiscal irresponsibility – first by attempting to make reopening contingent on allowing as much as $1.5 trillion in new borrowing for extended and rescinded health care provisions, and now by trying to wipe clean the government’s $3.4 trillion PAYGO debit from the One Big Beautiful Bill. Lawmakers should stop papering over their fiscal recklessness and face the tough decisions head-on – or at the very least, follow their own rules. Even if the government is reopened soon, lawmakers must still reach agreement on nine appropriations bills for the rest of the fiscal year by the end of January. They should do so without increasing the debt and ideally re-establish enforceable discretionary spending caps. Forthcoming negotiations will focus on whether and how to extend the expiring ACA subsidies before the year ends. Given the nation’s increasingly unsustainable fiscal path, it will be critical for policymakers to approach these extensions in a fiscally responsible way. This will require reforms and offsets so that the resulting package is fully paid for – ideally twice over in accordance with Super PAYGO, given how bad things have gotten. Both parties should work together to lower health care costs and reduce the debt. It's hard to imagine the bar for dysfunctional government getting any lower than it is right now. Policymakers should reopen the government without delay and without writing off trillions in recent borrowing or providing themselves a blank check for future borrowing. |