McConnell on government funding prospects: ‘It’s a pretty big mess’

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) didn’t mince words Wednesday when discussing the hurdles Washington faces in preventing a government shutdown next month. 

“It’s a pretty big mess,” he said in Kentucky on Wednesday afternoon, before once again appearing to freeze while taking questions from reporters.

“The Speaker and the president reached an agreement which I supported in connection with raising the debt ceiling to set spending levels for next year,” he added.

“The House then turned around and passed spending levels that were below that level,” he said. “Without stating an opinion about that, that’s not going to be replicated in the Senate.”

Lawmakers return to Congress next month after a weeks-long recess, and members in both chambers expect to see floor action on some of the 12 annual appropriations bills laying out government funding for fiscal 2024. 

However, there is much uncertainty around whether Washington will see its first shutdown in years next month, particularly as some conservatives are already downplaying the threat of a funding lapse amid internal GOP divisions on spending. 

At the same time, the gap between funding levels pursued by appropriators in the House and Senate has widened in recent months as bipartisan support has grown in the upper chamber for emergency funding in areas like defense. 

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has indicated the House likely will need to pass a continuing resolution (CR), which temporarily freezes spending at current levels, to prevent a funding lapse. 

However, the leader pushed back against the idea of a CR that punts the funding deadline too close against the holidays when asked about a stopgap bill to freeze spending through December in a recent interview.

“I want to make sure we’re able to set this where it’s not by a holiday, that it’s just enough time that, if we can do more of our work, that we could be in conference with the Senate,” he said recently on Fox Business’s “Sunday Morning Futures.” 

However, McConnell signaled on Wednesday that a CR into December is still on the table. 

“I think we’ll end up with a short-term congressional resolution, probably into December, as we struggle to figure out exactly what the government’s spending levels are going to be next year,” he said.