{"id":16717,"date":"2017-08-31T17:32:03","date_gmt":"2017-08-31T17:32:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/uncategorized\/2017\/08\/31\/hurricane-harvey-lowers-odds-of-government-shutdown-for-now\/"},"modified":"2026-08-07T22:04:32","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T22:04:32","slug":"hurricane-harvey-lowers-odds-of-government-shutdown-for-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/one.sightlinemg.com\/federaltimes\/congress\/budget\/2017\/08\/31\/hurricane-harvey-lowers-odds-of-government-shutdown-for-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Hurricane Harvey lowers odds of government shutdown, for now"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Hurricane Harvey may help Congress delay a possible government shutdown and put off a fight over the federal budget.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Congress is expected to tie must-pass emergency aid for victims of the hurricane to three-month stop-gap government funding and an increase for the borrowing limit, which expires Oct. 1. That in turn would let Congress punt any big battles over the 2018 budget to make room to discuss tax reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Mark Meadows, the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, told ABC News on Tuesday he and many of his group\u2019s members want to avert a government shutdown this fall. He suggested conservatives would vote for a continuing resolution next week, with as much as $20 billion for hurricane funding attached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s going to be a shutdown fight, I would see that that would happen in December or January \u2026 but not in September and certainly not along with the disaster we\u2019re facing in Texas,\u201d said Meadows, R-N.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meadows also said his members want to avert a shutdown in September even if no money is included for a proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall, a signature issue of President Donald Trump\u2019s campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last week, at a campaign rally in Phoenix, Arizona, Trump suggested he would let a shutdown happen if Congress does not include appropriations for the wall. The House has passed a package of appropriations that included $1.6 billion for a wall, as well as defense spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump has since asked Congress to quickly pass Harvey aid, which suggests to some analysts he would go along with any measure that has Harvey funding attached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo politician would want to touch [a shutdown now], not in the House or the Senate, let alone the president,\u201d said Gordon Adams, who oversaw defense budgeting for the Clinton administration. \u201cIn an odd kind of way, Harvey becomes the horse that draws the debt ceiling and CR carts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Harvey is said to be one of the worst natural disasters in U.S. history, and it\u2019s not over yet. Since making landfall on the Gulf Coast of Texas on Friday, the ongoing storm has killed at least 38 people, left more than 30,000 people displaced, and has destroyed or damaged between 30,000 and 40,000 homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Passing a CR with Harvey funding and raising the debt limit still leaves until November and December fights over the wall, tax reform, and the balance between defense and nondefense funding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another scenario is the debt ceiling is raised until November or December, raising the stakes for a grand bargain that includes some or all of the above.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSuch packages are arguably not the best for government because so much is in them,\u201d said former Department of Defense Comptroller Bob Hale. \u201cBut in a sharply divided country, where each side is looking for leverage, I think it is true that nothing major can get resolved until everything major is resolved.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If somehow Trump is dissatisfied with the final deal, will he stand firm on his shutdown threat? It\u2019s hard to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFrom President Trump\u2019s perspective, it sounds like a very effective negotiating tactic, and it mirrors his previous negotiating tactics,\u201d said Katherine Blakeley, a defense budget expert with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. \u201cBut in his eight months as president we have seen him draw red lines and then forget they ever existed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A short-term CR is nothing new for defense contractors and the military, though it means the DoD treads water at 2017 funding levels with no new-start programs. Averting a shutdown would be a win for the Defense Department and Veterans Affairs, where there were unpaid furloughs for civilian workers during the last extended government shutdown, in October 2013.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis on Thursday declined to say whether he was confident there would be a CR, and said he planned to work with Congress. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dWe\u2019ve already got meetings scheduled to sit down with them and talk about the way forward,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is up to Congress. That\u2019s why I need to stay on top with them. Is it going to be a budget, is it going to be a CR, a short-term CR, all of those things, we need to work with Congress on.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A fiscal 2018 omnibus spending package is presumed to take shape after September with low expectations for big-league defense buildup. Budget watchers are looking to the Senate Appropriations Committee, which has yet to pass a defense appropriations bill, to influence the final defense number.<\/p>\n\n\n\t