Congress Set to Vote on Bill to Fund Government through December 20

Congress plans to vote on a stopgap funding measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR), the week of November 18. This would be the second CR of fiscal year 2020 (FY20), which began on October 1; it would fund the government through December 20. Because the current CR will expire on November 21 and Congress has yet to pass any final spending bills, this second CR is necessary to avoid a government shutdown. The CR will continue FY19 funding levels for affordable housing and community development programs.

The House and Senate still need to agree on topline numbers for each of the 12 annual spending bills that fund the government. The House wrote and passed its funding measures prior to the bipartisan budget agreement that lifted the austere budget caps set by the Budget Control Act of 2011 (see Memo, 7/29), so the House bills are written at a higher level than the Senate’s, which were developed after the agreement. Both the House and the Senate have passed their versions of FY20 bills funding affordable housing and community development programs, but a final version depends on first agreeing to topline numbers.

NLIHC’s budget chart is at: https://tinyurl.com/y6tnabuo 

Learn more about the impacts of inconsistent funding on affordable housing and community development funding at: https://tinyurl.com/y4yzqxz2