Bipartisan leaders of both chambers of Congress have agreed on the outline of six funding bills before the March 1 deadline. They also approved a stopgap bill that will give Congress enough time to negotiate and pass the other spending bills by March 22nd.

The agreement gives lawmakers time to pass the temporary funding measure before the first deadline of four bills expires at midnight on Friday.

The congressional leaders stated, “To give the House Appropriations Committees and Senate Appropriations Committees ample time to execute this deal in principal, including writing, preparing report languages, scoring, and other technical issues, and to allow the members 72 hours of review, it will be necessary to pass a short-term Continuing Resolution to fund agencies until March 8 and 22. This resolution must then be voted by the House this week.”

The bipartisan group, consisting of House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Hakeem Jeffries, ignores warnings both from the left and right while counting on both Republicans and Democrats to support it in the House.

CNN reports that the six bills included in the proposed agreement include funding for:

• The Agriculture Department and Food and Drug Administration
• Commerce and Justice Departments
• Science, Energy, and Water Development
• The Interior Department
• Military Construction and Veterans Affairs
• Housing and Urban Development and the Transportation Department

Wall Street Journal:

Although the bipartisan agreement is a step forward in preventing a government shutdown, there are still some uncertainties. The House and Senate must first pass the stopgap bill before Saturday and then all 12 spending bills no later than the end of next month.

Johnson, who is a conservative from Louisiana and has been the speaker of his Republican conference for four months now, will need to convince his rebellious Republican colleagues to accept this deal. House Republicans are taking a hard line on spending. This has complicated efforts to pass an annual budget plan and required repeated short-term fixes. Some members object to the use of short-term bills called continuing resolutions to delay hard decisions.

Nebraska Republican Don Bacon is expected to vote “yes”. “The Speaker has to do what he needs to do for him and his party’s government. “I think stopgap measures are horrible,” he said. “But shutting down the government is worse, right?”

Many Republicans are in disagreement.

Rep. Byron Donalds, R.-Fla., said: “This town needs more time to make deals that aren’t in the best interest of the American people.”

We wouldn’t be in debt of $33 trillion if Congress always acted in the “best interest” of the American public.

After some delays, and probably one or two more stopgap measures of funding, the 12 appropriations bills will most likely be passed.

It’s not too late to begin working on the 2025 budget bills.