House and Senate leaders have shown some signs of consensus this week on a plan for completing the 12 annual appropriations bills, with a tentative completion goal of Dec. 31.
The House has passed 10 of the bills. The Senate has not yet passed any.
The biggest holdup in the bill that funds the Department of Defense is whether to spend money for a southern border wall.
A bigger-picture problem is differences over how much should go to each spending bill.
“It’s way past time for Democratic and Republican appropriators to sit down and hammer out a bipartisan agreement on allocations to the various agencies,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the Senate floor Wednesday.
The federal government is operating on a continuing resolution that expires in three weeks.
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