FY 2018 Appropriations The House is scheduled to vote today on “clean” CR (continuing resolution) to keep the government open through 12/22 at fiscal year (FY) 2017 funding levels, plus an extension of some parts of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) until December 31. Some Republicans were pushing for full-year defense spending in the CR with only short-term non-defense spending, but there’s zero chance the Democrats wold agree to that. Senate Majority Leader McConnell (R-KY) has publicly supported a clean two-week funding extension, so even thought its pretty last-minute, it sounds like Congress will get this done and they will have another couple of weeks to figure out to what to do next. As for what that might be, Sheryl Cohen of CEF says the following is likely: > Agree on how much to raise defense and non-defense caps – Democrats continue to push for parity in raising the non-defense caps by the same amount as the defense caps. Yesterday it was rumored <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/republicans-government-shutdown_us_5a284175e4b02d3bfc37be61?3so> that Democrats had rejected the Republican offer to raise FY 2018 defense spending by $54 billion and non-defense spending by $37 billion (that eliminates the discretionary sequester on each category) and that Republicans had rejected the Democratic counter offer to raise each category by $54 billion. Republicans are next expected to offer a defense increase of $63 billion for each of the next two year coupled with $54 billion increases for non-defense spending. Those are larger increases than in prior budget agreements. Once an agreement is reached, appropriators need three-to-five weeks to finalize an omnibus appropriations bill, leading to another CR on December 22. > > Disaster relief, Dreamers, CHIP, and other priorities – A December 22 CR would be a likely vehicle for other high-priority legislation for those hit hard by natural disaster and those who want to extend protection for Dreamers, reauthorize CHIP, among other issues. Every item added creates opposition somewhere, and it’s not clear which items will be included in a December CR, which might be included in the eventual omnibus funding bill in January/February, and which will be left behind. Republicans would like to be able to get enough internal support to pass a CR without Democratic support, but that isn’t possible in the Senate, leading to some cooperation with Democratic requests. Other News: About an hour ago, Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) announced his resignation from the Senate. Jeff