Congress might not get summer vacation this year

Senator standing outside of U.S. Capitol.

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 19 June 2017

Republican leadership in Congress is considering canceling legislators' month-long August recess, The Hill reports, to allow more time for work on tax reform, health-care policy, and other agenda priorities.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has attempted to schedule a health-care bill vote in the two weeks before the July 4 break, but that looks increasingly unlikely. The slow pace of health-care negotiations delays the 2018 budget resolution, which in turn affects progress on tax reform and other appropriations votes. The deadline for many of these votes is Sept. 30 if another government shutdown is to be avoided.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.