Congress Avoids a Shutdown, But Leaves Much More to Be Done

The House and Senate have approved a Continuing Resolution (CR) that funds the government at Fiscal Year 2023 appropriations levels and avoids a government shutdown. The bill now goes to President Biden for his signature.

The following is a statement from Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

It’s a relief and good news that we will not have a government shutdown; it shouldn’t have been this complicated. We had to endure an absurd amount of wasted hours, palace intrigue, and breathless media countdown clocks, to arrive at this sensible outcome of a short-term CR. The challenge now is to ensure that we don’t do this all over again in six weeks.

We are glad to see that lawmakers were able to avoid a wasteful and unnecessary shutdown that would have disrupted the lives of millions of Americans. But it’s inexcusable that it took so long and got this close.

Congress should honor the funding agreements made in the Fiscal Responsibility Act and pass its appropriations bills before the new deadline. That means no phony emergency spending to inflate the caps, and no ridiculous demands that serve only to slow down the process.

More importantly, we should be focused on how to address our out-of-control deficits and debt. In recent days, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed the establishment of a fiscal commission to improve the debt trajectory and secure our trust funds. At the moment, this commission is the best option to move beyond the dysfunction and towards real solutions.

###

For more information, please contact Kim McIntyre, Director of Media Relations, at mcintyre@crfb.org.