SENATE/SPENDING/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Donald Trump’s repeated threats to shut down the federal government have obscured an unusual development: lawmakers are making surprisingly swift progress funding it. The Senate is expected to pass this week a package of four spending bills with bipartisan support, on top of a trio passed in late June. The House, meanwhile, has been passing more partisan spending bills at its own brisk clip. While lawmakers will have to hash out their differences, they still are far closer to funding most of the government for the next fiscal year than they typically are at this point—two full months before current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 1. That is why Mr. Trump’s recent flurry of tweets threatening to shut the government over immigration legislation has frustrated lawmakers from both parties seeking to avoid a showdown roughly a month before November’s midterm elections..Leaders from both parties have been working to avoid the familiar gridlock that often forces lawmakers to cram up to a dozen spending bills into one massive package, known as an omnibus, that typically passes just before the deadline. Presented with a sweeping $1.3 trillion package in March, Mr. Trump threatened to veto it, although he ultimately signed the bill.”
–Kristina Peterson, “Trump’s Shutdown Talk Overshadows Headway in Congress on Funding,” the Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2018 8:09 pm