President signs two-week spending bill
Today, the President signed another temporary spending measure to fund the federal government until December 21, 2018. The stopgap bill, also called a Continuing Resolution (CR), maintains FY18 funding levels for several federal agencies, including HUD and USDA. The move extends the current partial CR, which has been in place since the start of Fiscal Year 2019 on Oct. 1, and was set to expire today.
With the new fiscal deadline set for just three days before the Christmas holiday, lawmakers will face pressure to reach a longer-term spending agreement over the next two weeks. Temporary extensions of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) and the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), both set to expire today, were also included in the CR.
In the meantime, negotiations have slowed on tax legislation introduced to Congress at the end of November. House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Kevin Brady (R-TX) introduced the legislation, which included tax extenders and technical fixes to tax reform. The bill was originally seen as a potential vehicle to enact LIHTC-strengthening provisions from the Affordable Housing Credit Improvement Act.