Congress avoids shutdown with stop-gap bill, but another showdown looms in

But another budget battle will likely ensue then, as Congress remains divided over federal funding for women’s health organization Planned Parenthood.

The House of Representatives relied heavily on Democrats to secure passage in a 277-151 vote. Sepp said he’s grown increasingly concerned about the way lawmakers put off budgets, only to add more financial bloat when they finally pass. “This could be a surefire way to get our economy back into a few kind of recession if Congress does not make a commitment to keep spending under control and continues to keep just kicking the can down the road”.

The Federal Communications Commission will issue a public notice postponing certain October deadlines in the event that Congress doesn’t clear a stop-gap funding resolution by September 30, an agency spokeswoman told Bloomberg BNA.

He called for the full-year budget to reinstate higher federal spending levels, which were cut in 2013. He also argued that easy monetary policy from central banks has made lawmakers less likely to address the deficit.

“The only thing Congress accomplished by averting a government shutdown was postponing a crisis it created in the first place”, American Federation of Government Employees National President J. David Cox Sr. said.

Whether or not the party’s conservative Tea Party faction forces a shutdown, there are real costs to discussing and preparing for the possibility of one, they said. While a government shutdown is most often decried because of the loss of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, this report highlights the blow sustained by departments and agencies across the executive branch, resulting in declining productivity, innovation and morale, to name just a few consequences. Thousands of federal employees are now questioning their holiday plans.

That could mean a government shutdown two weeks before Christmas. In short, the mere threat of a shutdown decreases productivity, stifles planning, inhibits innovation, lowers morale and undercuts recruitment.

But it avoids a repeat of 2013, when bickering lawmakers failed to reach a deal on spending and the government skidded into a damaging 16-day shutdown. Much of that was compensation to employees paid not to work for a combined 6.6 million days.