Congress is careening toward another government shutdown deadline.
Without new legislation, crucial services and legions of federal workers will be sidelined or go unpaid as soon as 12:01 a.m. Saturday. The White House and Congress have agreed on spending laws for the rest of the fiscal year, but they may not have time to enact all the legislation before the deadline, so a short partial shutdown might be hard to avert.
The federal government can only spend money that’s appropriated by Congress — that is, spelled out in a funding law. When those laws expire, Congress has to approve new funding or agencies have to shut down.
That’s what lawmakers are facing this week: Congress needs to approve new funding legislation for parts of the government because the existing spending laws for those agencies are set to expire at 12:01 a.m. Saturday.
A shutdown could be relatively short, though it’s nearly impossible to know in advance. Congress has been setting its spending deadlines on Fridays, so if the government does shut down, lawmakers have the weekend to try to resolve things while most federal workers are already off the clock.
If lawmakers miss the midnight deadline, they could still pass funding legislation over the weekend and have the government open again Monday like nothing ever happened. In this scenario, a partial shutdown might only last a few hours, if final passage of new funding legislation comes Saturday morning, or about a day, if it happens Sunday.
Read more here from The Washington Post.
