As expected, Congress has passed the $1.1 trillion spending bill to fund the government for the rest of fiscal year 2017. The government was currently only funded through the end of this week on an extension that was passed last week.
Despite the apparent stringent efforts by lawmakers to avoid a partial government shutdown in the last couple of weeks, President Trump tweeted earlier this week that a government shutdown in the fall might be a good thing when the next budget debate comes up.
The reason for the plan negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good “shutdown” in September to fix mess!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 2, 2017
It’s too early to know at this time whether or not a shutdown could potentially arise in the fall.
Despite a budget proposal that suggested making significant cuts to many federal agencies, the bill that was ultimately passed left most agency budgets largely intact, and some agencies even got budget increases.
NASA, for example, will see a 2% increase in its budget and the FBI gets a 3% boost. The IRS maintained the same budget it had over the previous year. Even the EPA, an agency which was forecast to potentially have cuts of as much as 25%, only saw a 1% decrease in its budget under the bill’s terms.
President Trump signed the bill into law on Friday.
