Congress Creates Bipartisan Panel to Avoid Future Shut Downs

Congress recently formed a bipartisan committee comprised of both U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives (“bicameral”) to address the broken Congressional budget process. The goal of the panel, led by U.S. Representatives Steve Womack (R-AR) and Nita Lowey (D-NY), is to make changes to the budget process that would avoid more future shut downs. This is a hot topic in Congress right now given the two federal government shutdowns in the first three months of 2018. 

As quoted in this Politico Pro snippet:

“‘This is not a super committee about the debt,’ Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said as he left the panel’s first closed-door meeting. ‘This is a select committee to try to figure out how we can set ourselves on a path to do regular budgets and appropriations and stop shutting the government down.’”

According to The Hill, the committee held its first meeting in early March.