Lawmakers return to Washington on Tuesday to face a mountain of must-pass items for September, a workload that threatens to divide lawmakers as leaders look to avoid a government shutdown, debt default and dry coffers at the emergency management agency tasked with rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey.
There are also items of state interest that Georgia lawmakers are hoping to advance, including halting cuts to charity hospitals such as Grady Memorial in Atlanta, refreshing PeachCare's parent program and extending federal tax credits to benefit the nuclear power project at Plant Vogtle.
Add in a fraught debate over Confederate monuments and whether to stabilize wobbly Obamacare markets and September will be nothing short of a massive headache for lawmakers returning from a month of recess.
All the items on Washington’s to-do list will have an impact roughly 600 miles away in Georgia. Countless local businesses, universities, airports and individuals rely on money from the federal government in the form of jobs, contracts and grants — money that largely wouldn’t flow in a shutdown.
Many state and local officials are also waiting to see how federal lawmakers handle the biggest items of the day, particularly on health care, before acting themselves.
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