VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. — Congress is likely to approve an $833 billion defense spending bill. But it won't be easy, according to House Armed Services Committee Vice Chairman Rep. Rob Wittman (R-Virginia First District).
The problem is, once the House returns next week from its summer recess, there will only be 13 working days left on the legislative calendar prior to the end of the current fiscal year.
A continuing resolution (CR) will probably be needed to avoid a shutdown and to keep the federal government operating beyond September 30.
"I'm not quite sure how everything shakes out, but I'm pretty confident that we will avoid a shutdown and that we will get some short-term spending measure done by the end of the month," said Wittman, in an interview Thursday with 13News Now.
But, added to the mix, there is now this: Former President Donald Trump has said that Republicans in Congress should shut down the government if Congress doesn't pass a Republican bill to change voting rules across the country.
The Hill reports that some conservative House GOP leaders hope Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) decides to link a CR to a Republican-backed bill known as the "Safeguarding American Voter Eligibility" or SAVE Act, authored by Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas).
Fellow Republican Wittman, while supportive of the SAVE Act, said that he hopes that bill does not get linked to passage of a CR.
"I don't think it's a good idea. We need to continue to keep government open. We need to do our jobs. We need to get appropriations bills passed. We need to get the work of the nation done," he said.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the last 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.