Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) raised concerns Monday over what she called a “$1.1 billion problem” in a House Republican plan to keep the government funded past Friday’s shutdown deadline and into September.
Speaking outside Congress, Bowser urged lawmakers to revise the language in the stopgap measure, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to prevent D.C. from being forced to operate under the previous fiscal year’s funding levels.
She warned that the plan would result in an immediate $1 billion cut to the city’s budget.
“In the most recent continuing resolution language, it ignores our already congressionally approved fiscal 2025 budget,” she said. “Instead, it would peg us at FY24 levels — the levels that federal agencies are [at] because they do not have an approved FY 25 budget.”
“But we are not a federal agency,” she said. “We are a city, county, state all at once, and we provide direct services to the people of the District of Columbia, visitors to the District of Columbia, businesses in the District of Columbia, diplomats and visiting heads of state and everyone who works here in the Congress.”
In past stopgap measures, Congress included provisions allowing the District to maintain spending at its fiscal 2025 budget levels.
“The CR omitted a longstanding provision that would allow D.C. to continue spending its local fiscal year 2025 budget and instead treats D.C. as a federal agency forcing the district to revert to spending at fiscal year 2024 levels for the remainder of the year,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said Monday.
please rewrite: The comments come as Republicans move quickly to pass the legislation ahead of the looming Friday deadline.
In lieu of a bipartisan agreement from Congress to update government funding levels, Republicans are pushing to pass a stopgap that would freeze government funding at fiscal 2024 levels, with some increases for defense programs and cuts to some nondefense programs.
The bill also includes some add-ons in line with requested anomalies from the White House.
During the press conference Monday, Bowser said she had been in touch with the White House on the matter. But it remains unclear if the move was intentional.
“They are aware of what’s happening at the Congress, and we’ve asked for their help,” she said. But when asked if the White House indicated it would help on D.C.’s behalf, the mayor added, “I think they’ve indicated that it didn’t come from them.”
