Congress Likely To Leave Current Funding Levels In Place

One month before a temporary agreement to fund the government expires, congressional appropriators appear to have made little progress, making it ever more likely Congress will resort to leaving current funding levels in place through the end of the fiscal year.

The chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate appropriations committees met last week to discuss the potential completion of FY 2022 appropriations and released a joint statement stating they “look forward to further conversations in the coming days, with the shared goal of finishing our work by the February 18 government funding deadline.”

Oklahoma Congressman Tom Cole (R-OK4), Vice Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Committee, said Democratic leaders have been wasting too much time on “bright shiny objects” like Build Back Better and voting rights, and the president needs to show some leadership and focus more attention on passing a budget.

“His job is to actually run the government, that’s what we elect him to do,” said Rep. Cole in an interview last week, “and he’s the commander-in-chief of the military — he ought to be focusing enough attention on assembling the players and saying, ‘I need a budget for the United States military, I need a budget for every agency of government, we’re operating on Donald Trump‘s last negotiated budget and I’m in the second year of my administration, and that needs to change.’”

Alex Cameron will have the full story on News 9 and News on 6 at 5 p.m.