After the longest government shutdown in history ended last week, both houses of Congress are in session now for the first time since mid-September. The House’s extended recess and the Senate’s exclusive focus on shutdown negotiations have left a log-jam of priorities for Congress to address. Today, we take a look at the economic priorities likely to see Hill action during the rest of 2025 and into January, when another shutdown looms.
The key items include the remaining nine appropriations bills that fund discretionary programs and the National Defense Authorization Act. House Financial Services is also likely to reschedule its oversight hearing with prudential regulators, and Senate Banking looks at reforms to federal deposit insurance. Which of these priorities will Congress take up before the end of this year, and which, like government funding, could slip into 2026?
Best,
Dana
Congress has returned after the longest government shutdown in American history. The House is in session for its first full week since mid-September, when Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the chamber for 54 days. The Senate has returned to its full schedule of legislative work after negotiations on government funding dominated the chamber’s attention for nearly two months.
Dozens of scheduled hearings and markups have been postponed or cancelled over the past weeks. With only four legislative weeks left this year, Congress is now reprioritizing its near-term legislative agenda. Below are the key economic policy priorities we expect Congress to focus on for the remainder of 2025 and into next year, given that the current Continuing Resolution (CR) funding the government expires on January 31.
FY26 Government Funding
The 2026 fiscal year (FY26) kicked off at the beginning of last month with a government shutdown, leaving many discretionary programs – funded each year through the appropriations process – unfunded for a record 43 days. Even though Congress has ended the government shutdown, work on a majority of the 12 appropriations bills remains incomplete, with active disagreements over funding levels and partisan policy riders that are often tacked on to the must-pass legislation. With another major funding cliff looming on January 30, government funding is likely to continue dominating Congress’s legislative agenda for the remainder of this calendar year.
In recent years, Congress has struggled to pass appropriations bills, increasingly turning to continuing resolutions (CRs) to fund programs at prior year levels until an agreement is reached on the size and contents of full-year bills. The Trump administration’s continued post-passage interference with congressionally-appropriated funding and growing polarization in the Capitol have only made the traditionally-bipartisan appropriations process more difficult. This, in part, forced Congress to turn to a full-year CR for discretionary funding in the last fiscal year (FY25) and drove disagreement on even a short-term CR for FY26 funding.
Ultimately, Congress was able to strike a deal last week that paired three full-year appropriations bills (Agriculture, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs, and the Legislative Branch) with a CR for the remaining nine appropriations bills that extends funding through January 30. While programs under the three bills listed above have secured funding for the remainder of FY26, the others – which make up over 90 percent of discretionary funding – will need to be addressed in the next two months to prevent a second, partial government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) and appropriators have already decided to move forward with another package of funding measures, expected to consist of:
- Defense
- Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS)
- Transportation, Housing and Urban Development (T-HUD)
- Commerce, Justice, and Science (CJS)
Senate leadership would like to move forward with this package in the coming weeks. While not necessarily easier to pass, these bills address priority funding areas, more likely to spur swift, bipartisan action. The last five bills, which are further from completion, let alone agreement, may have to wait until the new calendar year or necessitate a CR when the current one expires after January 30.
Despite a shared desire among members of Congress to avoid another shutdown and pass full-year funding bills, many hurdles remain:
- Top-line funding levels – Congress remains divided on funding levels, both for overall discretionary spending and individual bills. The House has put forth proposals that more closely resemble the President’s proposed budget, which would cut non-defense discretionary spending by more than 20 percent ($163 billion). The Senate, which usually takes a more bipartisan approach because of the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster threshold, has yet to even release funding totals for all 12 bills. This lack of progress and consensus will make it more difficult for Congress to reach a consensus on the remaining appropriations bills.
- Partisan riders (“poison pills”) – Congress frequently includes partisan, “poison pill” policy provisions in appropriations bills that are unrelated to the underlying funding legislation. These attempts to leverage must-pass vehicles to advance or block contentious priorities can endanger the passage of funding bills, especially in a trifecta where Republicans may feel empowered to push harder for their partisan priorities. The remaining appropriations bills contain riders related to hot-button issues like abortion, immigration, and environmental protections, and lawmakers will attempt to add more as the bills move through the legislative process.
- Safeguards – Given the administration’s unilateral decision to withhold or rescind billions in congressionally appropriated funding, Senate Democrats are pushing for procedural reforms to the appropriations process that could protect Congress’s constitutional power of the purse. Democrats have sought reforms like strengthening limits on the Executive’s control over spending and limiting partisan rescissions that can pass under a simple majority vote in the Senate and undo bipartisan appropriations deals. In their eyes, these safeguards are necessary because agreements on funding priorities and levels are pointless if the administration can change them at its own discretion. Republicans have refused to play ball on this front at the administration’s behest.
With little time remaining before the January 30 funding cliff, Congress will need to place much of its attention in the coming weeks and months on finding ways to address these significant hurdles – whether through full-year funding bills or another short-term CR – or risk thrusting the government into another painful shutdown.
The National Defense Authorization Act
For several months, House and Senate negotiations have been underway for the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). The toplines passed in each chamber differ by $32 billion, with the Senate recommending a budget of $925 billion and the House, in line with the White House, recommending $893 billion. The NDAA has been passed every year, with a consistent track record for 64 years. Congress is on course for a compromise bill to be finalized by the end of the month, with a December vote in reach.
One piece of the NDAA worth paying attention to: the Renewing Opportunity in the American Dream to Housing Act, or ROAD to Housing Act. The package of widespread housing reform bills the Senate attached to the NDAA back in October holds strong bipartisan support, with a vote of 77-20, indicating how much of a priority housing policy has become with affordability taking center stage. How these provisions fare in the House is subject to increasing discussions. Two weeks ago, a bipartisan group of a few dozen House members voiced their “strong support” for the ROAD to Housing Act in a sign-on letter, suggesting that ROAD to Housing will enjoy at least some support from both parties as its supporters attempt to push it through.
It is also possible that the House will try to add its own housing policies to the NDAA. Representatives Mike Flood (R-NE) and Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) announced that they would cohost a press conference today, touting “proposed major reforms” to the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s HOME Investment Partnership Program. The two of them have sought reforms that would provide greater flexibility to states and localities in taking advantage of the HOME Program, among other reforms. This could mean they wish to add their own housing proposals to the NDAA as an amendment, likely reflecting the HOME reform legislation they proposed earlier this year.
Another amendment that could be added to the NDAA would bar state regulations of artificial intelligence. This is a priority for many in the Congressional GOP’s leadership: a previous bill, introduced by Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), would have established such a moratorium on state AI regulation for 10 years before it was ultimately removed from the OBBBA during Senate negotiations in the face of considerable pushback from within the GOP. Such an amendment will likely receive pushback this time as well, so it remains to be seen how GOP leadership will try to push it through this time.
HFSC and SBC Discuss Reforms to Deposit Insurance
The House Financial Services Committee and Senate Banking Committee will continue ongoing bipartisan discussions on reforms to the nation’s deposit insurance framework.
The FDIC and NCUA insure deposits up to $250,000 per depositor at each insured financial institution. While over 99 percent of all deposit accounts are fully insured by the FDIC, some businesses often maintain balances exceeding $250,000 in accounts used to store money for payroll, operating expenses, and everyday payments.
The Senate Banking Committee Chair Tim Scott (R-SC) and Ranking Member Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) reportedly discussed options to expand deposit insurance over several months ahead of a committee hearing on deposit insurance reform in September. Following the hearing, two committee members – Senators Bill Hagerty (R-TN) and Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD) – introduced the Main Street Depositor Protection Act, which would provide $10 million of deposit insurance coverage for noninterest-bearing transaction accounts.
The House Financial Services Committee held its own hearing on the issue yesterday morning, in which the committee considered several legislative proposals, including the Employee Paycheck and Small Business Protection Act, which was introduced by Ranking Member Maxine Waters (D-CA). The bill would authorize the FDIC and NCUA to issue a proposed rule within 18 months to increase the existing deposit insurance limit after completing relevant data collection and analysis.
As deliberations over a specific proposal continue, it appears that members have yet to reach a consensus on the details of an updated framework for deposit insurance coverage.
Prudential Regulators May Testify Before HFSC
The House Financial Services Committee is likely to hold its semiannual hearing on oversight of prudential regulators before the year ends, to fulfill the statutory requirement that the Fed Vice Chair of Supervision appear before the committee at semiannual hearings. The hearing, which examines supervisory and regulatory developments, rulemakings, and activities undertaken by federal banking regulators, was previously scheduled for October 22 but was postponed after the House was adjourned in mid-September and has yet to be rescheduled.
Section 1108 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires the Vice Chairman for Supervision for the Federal Reserve Board to testify before the Committee at semiannual hearings. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), and the National Credit Union Administration (NCUA) do not have similar statutory testimony requirements, but the leaders of each agency have regularly been invited and testified alongside the Fed Vice Chair for Supervision in previous years.
The hearing could include the first testimony before the committee of each official since their respective appointments. Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman was confirmed to the position in June, FDIC Acting Chair Travis Hill was appointed to the role in January, Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, who was sworn in in July, and NCUA Board Chairman Kyle Hauptman was designated chair in January.
The hearing would also present the first opportunity for committee members to press regulators on their efforts to implement the Trump administration’s sweeping deregulation of the financial system. This includes:
- the joint Fed, FDIC, and OCC proposed rule to adjust the enhanced supplementary leverage ratio, loosening capital requirements for the largest banks, and
- the Fed’s proposed rule to release the models and methodologies used in its annual stress tests.
These dangerous proposed changes would weaken reforms implemented in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and make America’s largest banks less resilient during periods of stress.
Stock Trading Bill Gains Momentum in House
Momentum has been building this Congress, even through the shutdown, for the House to advance the Restore Trust in Congress Act – a comprehensive bipartisan bill banning stock trading and ownership by members of Congress. The bill, which was introduced in early September by Representatives Chip Roy (R-TX) and Seth Magaziner (D-RI), is the product of months of negotiations between a bipartisan group of members from across the political spectrum who have led their own bills seeking to ban Congressional trading. The bill represents the strongest, most viable path forward to finally banning congressional stock trading.
Last month, Representative Roy said that he and fellow Republicans are ready to push Republican House leadership to bring the bill to the floor for a vote, or even use a discharge petition to circumvent Speaker Mike Johnson. This morning, the House Administration Committee held a hearing focused on Congressional stock trading, in which members on both sides of the aisle largely acknowledged the need to address weaknesses in the current statute governing stock trading by members of Congress. Representative Luna (R-FL), an original cosponsor of the Restore Trust in Congress Act, reportedly said this morning that she plans to launch a discharge petition if Republican leaders fail to notice today an expected markup on the bill.
With 95 members of Congress already signed on as co-sponsors, we are hopeful that today’s hearing is just the first step to getting a markup and then a floor vote.
Overview of Road Ahead
Congress will be racing against the clock to get as much done as possible before the end of the calendar year and the FY26 CR a month later, as it tackles the legislative pile-up left in the wake of the government shutdown. The priorities outlined above, along with many other pressing economic issues, hang in the balance. As the 2026 midterm elections approach, legislative progress is sure to slow in the latter half of next year, meaning these pending priorities could very well represent a significant chunk of the 119th Congress’s remaining work.