Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives will return to Washington, D.C. next week after their Easter recess. While spring has only just sprung and, on paper, lawmakers still have months left to tackle their 118th congressional agenda, the reality is that Election 2024 is about seven months away. Accordingly, lawmakers will be trying to finish up their work as quickly as possible so they can move on to the campaign trail.
With those desires to get out of town in mind, this week we take a look at what the Senate and House must get done before the 118th Congress adjourns for the final time in early January 2025. We also look at what lawmakers would like to get done, and what is likely to be left on the docket for the 119th Congress when it begins early next year.
What Must-Pass Bills Are Left For 2024?
At the top of the “must do” items list is, of course, the annual federal spending bills. If you are asking yourself, “Didn’t Congress just settle this matter?” the answer is yes … for the current fiscal year (FY), FY 2024.
The Senate and House must pass legislation for FY 2025 by the end of the day on September 30, 2024, or most federal agencies will, once again, face a shutdown.
Of course, lawmakers also could do what they consistently have done for the last two decades: approve a continuing resolution (CR) that will keep the federal government in business at current funding levels for a set amount of time. (More on that option below.)
A few other key programs also expire at midnight on September 30. They are:
- The “farm bill” that authorizes programs related to crop insurance, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, which is sometimes still referred to as food stamps) and other social safety net programs, rural development programs, and agricultural research and conservation programs.
- Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program that provides cash assistance to families in need who have dependent children.
- The National Flood Insurance Program, or NFIP, which provides insurance to families and businesses in flood-prone areas.
More immediately, Congress must deal with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). As the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has noted, the current authorization for FAA operational, safety, and infrastructure programs expires under its current short-term extension on May 10, 2024. Multi-year reauthorization bills have advanced in both chambers, but those pieces of legislation are stuck amidst differences between the two chambers on their details. As such, the FAA has been dealing with short-term extensions for the last several months.
Just like it may do for FY 2025, for any of these four issues members of Congress could simply continue to approve short-term extensions, leaving longer term reauthorizations and reforms to the next Congress.
What Else Could Congress Get Done Before The End Of 2024?
As far as Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith (R-Mo.) are concerned, at the top of list of “want to get done” items is their bipartisan tax bill, H.R. 7024, the Tax Relief for American Families and Workers Act.
This legislation has a little something for everyone. Democrats support the expansion and extension of the Child Tax Credit included in the legislation while Republicans have praised the business tax deductions in the bill. The proposal also would expand the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) in an effort to address the country’s housing crisis.
The bill has broad appeal — it already has been approved by the full House, a nearly-impossible feat considering the disarray we have seen from that chamber during the last year. So why hasn’t it been enacted into law yet? The holdup comes from Senate Finance Committee Ranking Member Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) who does not like that the provisions in the bill are retroactive, meaning they would apply to tax year 2023, not just future tax years. Ranking Member Crapo also opposes the expansion of LIHTC and does not approve of how Chairman Wyden and Chairman Smith would pay for the bill. Currently, the legislation calls for hastening the cessation of the COVID-era tax break companies received for keeping people on their payrolls in order to fund the tax cuts that are in H.R. 7024.
While it will take a good bit of effort to address Ranking Member Crapo’s concerns — and every change the Senate makes to H.R. 7024 risks losing support for the legislation in the House — a tax cut is certainly something senators and House members running for reelection would like to give their constituents this election year.
Another “want to get done” item is a supplemental spending bill to provide military funding and/or foreign aid to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. With the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge last week, lawmakers also could add aid for Baltimore to this package.
As we noted last week, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has promised to bring up Ukraine legislation when Congress returns from recess next week. That debate will be a delicate dance as he tries to appease his right flank threatens to force a vote on a motion to vacate if he follows through with this promise. The Senate already has approved a supplemental spending bill without the border security and immigration provisions the House Freedom Caucus has demanded. If the House adds back those provisions, re-approving the bill in the Senate would be nearly impossible given Democrats’ opposition and the chamber’s filibuster rules, which require a minimum of 60 votes of support for any piece of legislation.
On the financial services and financial technology front, House Financial Services Committee (HFSC) Chairman Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) has made it clear that he wants to get his stablecoin bill to the finish line before he retires at the end of this year. This legislation, H.R. 4766, the Clarity for Payment Stablecoins Act, outlines how stablecoins should be regulated. (Currently, there is no comprehensive federal regulatory framework designed for this purpose; state and federal laws and rules are applied to the industry in a somewhat haphazard way.)
The HFSC approved Chairman McHenry’s legislation last year on a bipartisan vote, but it has been stuck ever since. Coindesk has said Chairman McHenry’s legislation has “a good chance of winning the House’s approval,” but then he “would then have to get his Senate counterparts — so far showing little interest — to embrace the effort.”
A potential sticking point also emerged last week. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the House Majority Whip, said he wants to hold a vote on his bill barring the Federal Reserve from creating its own digital coin in conjunction with Chairman McHenry’s stablecoin legislation. While committee Republicans welcome the packaged vote, Democrats seem wary of the dual track since they adamantly oppose Rep. Emmer’s bill.
What Is Likely To Be Left For The 119th Congress?
As noted above, while FY 2025 begins on October 1, 2024, and Congress must do something about funding federal agencies in the past, lawmakers don’t actually have to finish work on each individual spending bill before then. They could approve a CR that will keep the government operational at its current level of spending for a few extra weeks, months, or even for the full fiscal year.
The CR mechanism is something lawmakers have relied on for generations. According to the Bipartisan Policy Center, Congress has enacted at least one CR in all but three of the past 47 fiscal years. From 2010 to 2022 alone, policymakers passed 47 continuing resolutions ranging in duration from one to 176 days. Since 1999, Congress has used CRs for an average of five months each fiscal year.
Given that lawmakers will be eager to get to the campaign trail by August, if not sooner, the likelihood of them kicking the federal spending can down the road — again — is awfully high. Like it did this year, this work even could bleed into the next calendar year, as it has in past election years. In 2002, a midterm election year, for example, Congress approved eight continuing resolutions that drew the annual appropriations process out until late February 2023, three months after the election and one month after a new Congress was seated. In 2008, a presidential and congressional election year, there were just two CRs, but they extended funding until late March 2009, two months after the new president, Barack Obama, was inaugurated.
HFSC member Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) recently conceded that at least one CR will be necessary this fall. On a podcast produced in his home state, he said, “One may be confronted with a short-term continuing resolution on September 30 to a post-election lame-duck session. That’s always the consideration in a presidential election year.”
It may be especially so this year. Having approved only 27 bills in 2023, the 118th Congress already is on track to be one of the least productive Congresses in history. (Though, it should be noted that, according to AXIOS, congressional productivity actually has been better in election years than in non-election years since the 101st Congress, which sat from early 1989 to early 1991. Maybe the coming election will make lawmakers more productive!)
There are a host of other issues that lawmakers would like to address this year — digital privacy, antitrust legislation related to large technology companies, a regulatory regime for artificial intelligence, legislation to address TikTok and other threats lawmakers see coming from China — but the reality is that time is very limited and divisiveness on Capitol Hill is at an all-time high.
Lawmakers will certainly keep working to write and debate these priorities (so the private sector cannot take its eyes of Washington!), but the chances of them reaching the finish line feel more remote every day.