WASHINGTON D.C., DC — Virginia lawmakers are expressing relief that a federal government shutdown has been averted, for now.
The Senate approved a temporary continuing resolution (CR) Thursday night with a 78 -18 vote.
Both of Virginia's senators voted "yes."
The problem is the resolution merely kicks the can down the road until Dec. 20.
Though relieved to pass the measure ahead of the looming deadline, Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia) says the vote sets up "a major battle at the end of the year."
"Thank goodness we didn't have to go right up against Sept. 30," said Warner. "Candidly, if the Speaker had been more responsible in this, we could have dealt with it weeks ago and gotten to other business."
On Wednesday, the House voted 341-to-82 to approve the temporary spending measure.
All four of Hampton Roads' House members voted "yes."
However, Rep. Jen Kiggans (R, VA-02) is not happy about the way this process continues to play out.
"Shutting the government down is never the right thing to do. I am also frustrated with continuing resolutions because it doesn't give — especially people like the defense industry — a lot of forward projection into what their funding might be. It's just a continuation of a budget that we currently have," Kiggans said.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also weighed in on the measure.
"These short-term, temporary funding measures create uncertainty throughout the U.S. military and put us at a strategic disadvantage," Austin said in a statement.
President Joe Biden signed the bill on Thursday.
Professor Bob McNab is the chair of the Department of Economics and Director of the Dragas Center for Economic Analysis and Policy at Old Dominion University.
In an interview with 13News Now earlier this month, McNab called continuing resolutions "malpractice, malfeasance, incompetence." He said the military and Hampton Roads defense contractors would be hit especially hard by a CR.
"If the federal government wants to build another Virginia-class submarine, if the federal government wanted to do more maintenance of ships based in Hampton Roads, if the federal government wanted to fly more, train pilots more, train Marines more... they couldn't, because the continuing resolution essentially locks them in place," McNab said.
According to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), Congress has enacted at least one CR in all but three of the past 47 fiscal years.
The GAO said that from 2010 to 2022, lawmakers passed 47 continuing resolutions ranging in duration from one to 176 days.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the last government shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019 reduced economic output by $11-billion in the following two quarters — including $3 billion that the U.S. economy never regained.