House Republicans released the text of a bill Saturday that they hope will fund the government until October. But if lawmakers were expecting a “continuing resolution,” they may be in for a surprise.
The bill, which is 99 pages long, isn’t exactly a straight extension of current funding. Throughout the legislation, hundreds of line-items get different amounts than their current appropriation — some more and some less. Overall, the legislation reduces spending by $8 billion, though it doesn’t codify any of the cuts made by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
While no Republican has immediately come out in opposition to the supposed continuing resolution, the bill reads more like a year-end spending deal than a stopgap funding measure. That could be a problem on the GOP side.
Plenty of Republicans say they hate CRs; plenty more say they hate omnibus spending packages.
On the Democratic side, the problems with the legislation are even more daunting. Democrats are adamant that they won’t support a funding bill that doesn’t block President Donald Trump from shredding congressionally approved agencies, and Democrats resent getting boxed out of writing this measure.
Republicans are betting it’s a bluff. They think that if they can get the legislation through the House, at least some Senate Democrats will come along. But first, Republican leaders will have to get the bill out of the House.
Republicans are aiming to set up a vote as early as Tuesday. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote a letter to his Democratic colleagues on Friday telling them the legislation was “not acceptable” and urging them to vote no.
If Democrats hold strong and oppose the legislation, Republican leaders will need almost every single GOP lawmaker to vote for the measure to get it to the Senate.
Even if Republicans can clear the hurdle of passage in the House, they would still have to convince a handful of Democrats in the Senate to support the bill to overcome the 60-vote filibuster. That could be difficult.
“Instead of turning the keys over to the Trump administration with this bill,” the Senate’s top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, Patty Murray, said Saturday, “Congress should immediately pass a short-term CR to prevent a shutdown and finish work on bipartisan funding bills that invest in families, keep America safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent.”
The top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, Rosa DeLauro, also took issue with the legislation.
“I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution, which is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people,” DeLauro said in a statement moments after the text was released.
But Republicans don’t look apt to continue negotiating with Democrats — at least not until they have to.
“Democrats are not the ones interested in finding a reasonable solution to fund the government,” a House GOP leadership aide told reporters on a call Saturday morning. “It’s going to be a tough choice now for Democrats to decide if they want to be the ones to shut down the government, something that they’ve long opposed.”
As Murray suggested, Democratic appropriators have repeatedly said they’d prefer a short-term CR, allowing them to finalize a top-line spending agreement and then write legislation to that number. Appropriators have said for weeks — months even — that a deal is “imminent.” But a deal has never materialized. And with Democrats and Republicans at odds over Trump and Musk’s moves to block congressionally directed funds, no deal may ever come.
Republicans say the cleanest solution is just to extend the current funding for the rest of the fiscal year — or, more accurately, to approve this legislation which largely tweaks current funding.
In a post on Truth Social on Saturday, Trump urged all Republicans to “vote (Please!) YES” on the measure.
“We have to remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right. VERY IMPORTANT. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” Trump said in the post.
If the gambit doesn’t work, lawmakers could offer yet another short-term bill. But Congress could also be headed to a shutdown.
Current funding runs out on March 14.
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Daniella Diaz and Reese Gorman are reporters at NOTUS.