Congress closing in on shutdown deadline with no clear plan

Congress is struggling to strike a deal to keep the government funded as a looming deadline to prevent a shutdown next month gets closer.

Lawmakers are less than a month away from a mid-March date to pass legislation to prevent a funding lapse — or risk the first shutdown in years.

Negotiators on both sides have been working to strike a spending deal for weeks, with hopes of crafting the 12 annual funding bills that could make it out of both chambers with bipartisan support – and across President Trump’s desk for signature.

But they also say the task has gotten more difficult as fallout spreads over a sweeping operation undertaken by the Trump administration to reshape the federal government.

DeLauro and Cole have both continued to press for a deal on a topline agreement on how much to fund the government for fiscal year 2025 – a key step to kick off work on hashing out annual funding bills. But there is growing acknowledgement that a stopgap of some kind is necessary as Congress hurtles toward a March 14 deadline to keep the lights on with no clear plan on how to prevent a funding lapse.