The Senate will begin debate this week on a bill combining two FY 2019 appropriations bills — one for the Department of Defense and one for the Departments of Labor, Health, and Human Services (HHS), and Education, known as the “Labor-HHS” bill. Together these bills account for about 60 percent of all federal “discretionary” spending (as opposed to entitlement spending for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, for example). The House has already passed its version of the Defense Appropriation bill. The Labor-HHS bill is rarely passed as a separate measure, or on time for the beginning of the fiscal year on October 1, because it raises many controversial issues, including abortion and ACA-implementation spending. Often, the Labor-HHS bill and others are combined into a “continuing resolution” to keep the government “open” at current spending levels until final appropriations bills are enacted. This year, one complication to passing appropriations legislation will be the president’s threat to “shut down” the government if Congress does not appropriate securing funding for a border wall.
Encourage confidence to act