The current stopgap spending measure expires on Thursday, February 8, and Congress must approve a new continuing resolution to avoid another government shutdown.  Congress has enacted four stopgap measures since Fiscal 2018 began on October 1, 2017, and current negotiations have ground all other legislation to a screeching halt. 

Republicans are expected to push a stopgap bill that will fund the government through March 22, 2018, but Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) must contend with growing dissent among fiscal conservatives and defense hawks who are threatening to oppose more short-term funding bills.

Congress is approaching a deal on budget caps, the topline spending numbers lawmakers must agree to before writing the actual budget for Fiscal 2018.  Negotiations were stalled for weeks by a partisan fight over defense and nondefense spending levels.  Democrats insist increases in defense spending are matched by equal increases in nondefense spending but this principle of “parity” between the spending caps is rejected by fiscally conservative Republicans.  Despite dissent among deficit hawks, Republicans have proposed increasing the caps by a total of $143 billion, with defense going up by $80 billion and nondefense getting a $63 billion increase.  To make the increases in nondefense discretionary spending more palatable to rank and file members, Senator John Thune (R-South Dakota), chairman of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, suggests using the added funds to nondefense spending as a down payment on the President’s infrastructure plan, but it is unclear how much traction this proposal is getting with conservatives.