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![](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2018\/07\/18\/multimedia\/author-maggie-astor\/author-maggie-astor-thumbLarge.png\")
<\/p>\nCongress needs to fund the government and raise the debt ceiling. You\u2019d need a flow chart to figure out all the complications, but we\u2019re here to help.<\/p>\n
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By <\/span>Maggie Astor<\/span><\/p>\n Sign up here<\/em> to get On Politics in your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays.<\/em><\/p>\n You know that GIF of Donald Glover carrying a stack of pizza boxes into a room, only to freeze upon seeing that everything is on fire?<\/p>\n Let\u2019s talk about Congress.<\/p>\n Unless you\u2019re a congressional reporter or staff member \u2014 or, really, even if you are \u2014 you could be forgiven for wondering what is happening there this week. It\u2019s a great big dumpster full of substantive political disagreements and cynical posturing, tangled so tightly together that it can be hard to tell which is which. And the stakes are alarmingly high.<\/p>\n First, there are two things Congress needs <\/em>to do: fund the government by Oct. 1 and raise the debt ceiling by sometime in October. These are basic, Government 101 responsibilities, and the consequences of failure would be catastrophic. Republicans are insisting that Democrats fulfill them alone, while making that almost impossible.<\/p>\n Then there are two things the Democrats who control Congress want <\/em>to do: pass a $1.2 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill (a priority of moderate and conservative-leaning Democrats) and pass a $3.5 trillion partisan package containing much of President Biden\u2019s domestic agenda (a priority of progressive Democrats).<\/p>\n The bipartisan bill is supposed to receive a vote on Monday. But it probably won\u2019t have enough support from progressives to pass unless the partisan bill passes first. But there\u2019s no way the partisan bill can pass that quickly. But the moderates and conservatives won\u2019t agree to postpone the vote.<\/p>\n Like I said, it\u2019s a mess. Let\u2019s look at the four fires one at a time.<\/p>\n Refusing to raise the debt ceiling \u2014 a limit on how much the federal government can borrow to make expenditures that Congress has already authorized \u2014 is basically a game of chicken with the economy. If the ceiling isn\u2019t raised in time, the U.S. can\u2019t pay its bills, including essential obligations like Social Security benefits, military salaries and interest on existing loans.<\/p>\n This would be economically ruinous, and while the country has come close to doing it before, it has never happened. Congress has always acted in the end.<\/p>\n The particularly exhausting thing about this latest running of the exercise is that both parties acknowledge the debt ceiling must be raised \u2014 but Republicans are insisting that Democrats do it alone while simultaneously preventing them from doing so through regular procedures.<\/p>\n Unlike in past runnings, Republicans are not demanding anything in exchange for their support. They are simply refusing, citing their opposition to Democrats\u2019 planned spending, even though the increase is needed to cover something else: spending that Congress has already approved. (The Trump administration\u2019s 2017 tax cuts have contributed significantly to the debt ceiling\u2019s being reached, and it would have to be raised even without another penny of spending by Democrats.) While the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, is arguing that it is the responsibility of the party in power to raise the ceiling, Democrats voted to do so on a bipartisan basis when Republicans were in power.<\/p>\n In other words, the whole thing is about political posturing. And even Republicans who have sometimes bucked the party line are playing along.<\/p>\n \u201cDemocrats can solve this all by themselves,\u201d Senator Mitt Romney of Utah told reporters this week. \u201cThey have the votes to do it. Do it.\u201d<\/p>\n In theory, that\u2019s true \u2014 if Republicans don\u2019t filibuster. But Republicans intend to filibuster, creating a 60-vote threshold in the Senate that Democrats cannot meet alone.<\/p>\n Democrats could avoid a filibuster by using the budget reconciliation process, but that is filled with parliamentary obstacles. In a statement on Wednesday, Representative John Yarmuth, Democrat of Kentucky and chairman of the House Budget Committee, said it would be impossible to complete it before the government defaults, and called on Mr. McConnell to allow Senate passage of a regular bill that the House passed this week.<\/p>\n Congress needs to pass legislation to extend government funding for another couple of months, until it can negotiate full spending bills for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. If it doesn\u2019t, the government will shut down.<\/p>\n Unlike a debt default, this has happened before, most recently in December 2018. But it would still be deeply harmful, both to the economy and to the government\u2019s pandemic response.<\/p>\n On its own, the temporary funding measure is not controversial, and in fact, it includes crucial spending \u2014 for disaster recovery, for instance \u2014 that Republicans and Democrats alike want for their states. But because Democrats packaged it with the debt ceiling increase in an effort to pressure Republicans to support that, it is caught in the crossfire.<\/p>\n Democrats passed the funding and debt ceiling bill in the House on Tuesday with no Republican votes, but they can\u2019t do the same in the Senate because of the filibuster.<\/p>\n About six weeks ago, the Senate approved a $1.2 trillion package (including $550 billion in new federal spending) to strengthen the nation\u2019s physical infrastructure. The vote, after months of tortuous negotiations between the White House and lawmakers from both parties, was unusually bipartisan, with 19 Republicans joining all 50 Democrats in support.<\/p>\n But the House hasn\u2019t taken it up yet, because a majority of the House Progressive Caucus won\u2019t vote for it until the larger, partisan bill (more on that in a minute) passes. Mr. Biden and top congressional Democrats \u2014 including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the majority leader \u2014 agreed on a \u201ctwo-track\u201d strategy that ties each bill\u2019s fate to the other\u2019s. They settled on this as the only way to pass both, given the competing priorities of the party\u2019s progressive and conservative wings.<\/p>\n The 2022 fiscal year for the federal government begins on October 1, and President Biden has revealed what he\u2019d like to spend, starting then. But any spending requires approval from both chambers of Congress. Here\u2019s what the plan includes:<\/p>\nThe debt ceiling<\/h2>\n
Understand the Infrastructure Bill<\/h4>\n
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Funding the government<\/h2>\n
The bipartisan bill<\/h2>\n
Biden\u2019s 2022 Budget<\/h4>\n
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