The House and Senate last week approved a two-tiered short-term funding measure that keeps our government funded until early next year.
The measure, known as a Continuing Resolution (CR), funds Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, Agriculture, Energy, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development at the fiscal 2023 funding levels until Jan. 19 while other agencies are funded until Feb. 2. The laddered CR has no bad policy changes, but it also sets up two fiscal cliffs that could still mean shutdowns of some agencies.
It also means AFGE has two months to convince a divided Congress not to move forward with a fiscal commission, which new House Speaker Mike Johnson said was one of his top priorities. The proposed 16-member commission would be charged with recommending measures to reduce the federal deficit as well as projected shortfalls in Social Security and Medicare. The recommendations would be subject to an expedited up-or-down vote in Congress and could not be amended.
As AFGE said in our recent op-ed published in The Hill, implementing such a commission would likely be a disaster for federal employees and retirees in the current political environment, where Republicans have been unwilling to consider revenue increases for more than 30 years and have cut taxes on the wealthy. Like past debt commissions, the current proposal would not strengthen our nation’s finances but would finance tax cuts for the wealthy on the backs of working families.
Most Americans have repeatedly told pollsters they oppose proposals that would cut Social Security or Medicare benefits or raise the age to qualify.
As AFGE recently wrote, “The truth is a bipartisan debt commission is just a partisan wolf in bipartisan sheep’s clothing. In the end, Democrats should take a page out of Mike Johnson’s book. On slashing government spending through a bipartisan fiscal commission, stand on your core principles and reject bipartisanship.”