Last year, when there was a huge fight over the government shutdown, the obvious question was, given all the fuss over passing Trump's One Badly Bungled Budget, why was Congress now having to pass more legislation to keep the government open?
This is my best understanding. The OBBB was a budget reconciliation bill. Supposedly, a budget reconciliation bill can only address taxes and mandatory spending (such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid etc). Discretionary spending is controlled through appropriations. So isn't spending on immigration enforcement discretionary? The nearest I can understand this is an article from the American Immigration Council. The bill gave La Migra $170.7 that it must spend by the end of fiscal 2029 (September 30, 2029). Very little guidance was given as to the details. The breakdown was as follows:
| Spending Category | Funding Amount |
|---|---|
| Construction and maintenance of border wall, CBP checkpoints, and CBP facilities | $51.6 billion |
| Border Patrol agents and vehicles, and Federal Law Enforcement Training Center improvements. | $7.8 billion |
| Border technology and vetting | $6.2 billion |
| Operation Stonegarden (funding to state and local law enforcement agencies to support border enforcement) | $450 million |
| Border processing, including for unaccompanied children, Remain in Mexico, and expedited removal | $2.1 billion |
| Prosecutions of noncitizens, compensating local governments for incarcerating noncitizens, combatting drug trafficking, immigration judges | $3.3 billion |
| Detention capacity expansion | $45 billion |
| Enforcement and removal, including hiring ICE agents, transportation costs, and detaining families | $29.9 billion |
| State immigration and border enforcement cost-reimbursement funds | $13.5 billion |
| DHS cost-reimbursement fund for border enforcement | $10.0 billion |
| DOD support for immigration and border enforcement | $1.0 billion |
| Total | $170.7 billion |
Discretionary spending is supposed to be financed by twelve appropriations bills -- agriculture, commerce, defense, energy and water, finance (treasury), homeland security, interior and environment, social services (education, health, labor), legislative functions, VA and military construction, foreign affairs, and housing and transportation. These bills are often lumped together in varying combinations to limit the number of votes. The bill that ended the government shutdown gave funding for the fiscal year for three of these bills. Those bills were agriculture, meaning that SNAP benefits will not be endangered in case of another government shutdown (hurray!); VA and military construction, meaning that in case of another shutdown VA employees will be paid and housing can be built for military families (hurray!) and legislative services, meaning that in case of another shutdown Congress will be fully funded (doesn't that figure!). I was so ill-informed as to have thought that the defense appropriation was also paid, but I was wrong.
Five more of the appropriations bills have passed the House by wide margins and are expected to be approved by the Senate. On January 8, the House passed combined bills funding commerce, energy and water, and interior and environment by a vote of 397-28. On January 14, the House passed the bills funding the State Department and the Treasury Department by a slightly less overwhelming but still strong vote of 341-79. It seems a safe assumption that both bills will overwhelmingly pass the Senate and be signed into law.
That leaves defense, social services, transportation/HUD, and Homeland Security. Theoretically, these could be passed as a combined bill or separately. Of these four bills, transportation and HUD sounds wholly uncontroversial. The defense appropriations bills is clearly a must-pass in the sense that everyone agrees our military obligations have to be met and our troops have to be paid. On the other hand, Donald Trump has created a controversy by calling for a 50% increase. And some people want to use the bill to block funding for any invasion of Greenland. Continuing resolution, maybe, to fund defense at current levels for a few months while we talk about it? I really don't understand the social services bill. The House passed a three-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies, but this is apparently separate from the one-year appropriation bill. I don't know of any other controversies here, but obviously there is a lot that I don't know. But what is undisputed is that the biggest controversy is over funding Homeland Security.
Look, let's state the obvious here. I am sure that Democrats would very much like to pass suitable bills to fund transportation, defense (possibly by continuing resolution), and social services (leaving Obamacare subsidies to be decided separately) and cut off funding solely for Homeland Security. But let's be serious. What are the chances the Republicans would agree? If there is going to be a partial government shutdown, they are going to want it to be as painful as possible to put pressure on Democrats to cave. Why would they give up valuable hostages?
But suppose the Republicans are so crazy as to give up their hostages. Instead of facing of air traffic controllers and troops not being paid, we are facing solely a cutoff in funding for Homeland Security. That can be sustained for a long time. But not forever. Why? Because Homeland Security is not limited to ICE and Border Patrol. It also includes uncontroversial agencies, such as the Coast Guard and FEMA. How long can the Coast Guard go unpaid before there is serious pressure to fund them? And if a shutdown were to extend all the way into summer, FEMA would be unable to pay for disaster relief. Sooner or later, even Homeland Security will have to be paid. The question is, on what conditions?
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