House Republicans are pressing on with plans for a clean six-month stopgap to keep the government funded beyond next week’s shutdown deadline in the face of staunch resistance from Democrats.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters on Wednesday that Republicans are “running the full-year CR, period,” next week, referring to the party’s plan to pass a stopgap, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), through late September.
“We’re not going to live through CRs every two weeks and all that kind of stuff,” he said. “So, the Speaker is very insistent that we go all the way to September. I agree with that decision.”
Negotiators on both sides had previously been hopeful of striking a bipartisan deal on overall government spending for fiscal 2025, which began in October. But both parties have struggled to reach an overall funding agreement amid a fierce debate over the president’s authority to withhold dollars already allocated by Congress and lay off thousands of federal workers as part of a sweeping operation to reshape the government.
Cole said on Wednesday that a bipartisan deal is still “better than a CR,” leaving the door open to both sides continuing efforts to craft a bipartisan government funding deal for the remainder of the current fiscal year.
“You don’t have to do every single bill. I want to do all 12. I’m going to be crystal clear about that, but we can’t have a situation where [a] government shutdown is threatened every two weeks. We have other things to do,” he said, adding that Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also told appropriators to “keep negotiating.”
Cole and Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) huddled on Wednesday with the top Democrats on their respective funding committees, Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), to discuss a potential path forward on fiscal 2025 funding.
Democrats have been pushing for a short-term stopgap funding plan to buy more time for bipartisan funding talks, while raising alarm about the impact of government programs continuing to run on levels that were last hashed out about a year ago. They also want any CR to include assurances that the administration will spend the money as directed, which is a nonstarter for Republicans.
DeLauro said after the meeting that a bipartisan deal on a top-line number for fiscal 2025 spending is “imminent” and that negotiators are “ironing” out last-minute details.
“The first thing to do, in my view, is to make sure that there isn’t a full-year CR, and I’m not sure the other side has the votes, but that’s up to them,” DeLauro told reporters.
While government programs have been running on stopgaps since last October, Democratic negotiators raised a list of concerns over the potential consequences that a CR through the end of the fiscal year could pose to defense programs and military effectiveness, health care costs, pay reforms for wildland firefighters, veterans services and food assistance programs.
Democrats have also argued that a full-year stopgap would give the Trump administration more flexibility on funding beyond what Congress intended in spending legislation.
Republicans are expected to unveil their funding plan by the end of the week, with hopes of the House teeing up a vote on the legislation as early as next Wednesday.
DeLauro told reporters that she expected Democrats to overwhelmingly oppose the plan if it comes up for a vote, underlining the potential challenges GOP leadership could face in locking down sufficient Republican support for the stopgap proposal with a razor-thin margin.
Asked about potential add-ons that could be included in the stopgap, Cole told reporters that “the only anomalies we’re doing are basically anomalies from the administration, like in defense in particular, but others too.”
“We’re staying with basically a clean CR, the anomalies, giving the administration the ability to deal with issues like defense and like WIC and things like that.”
But some Republicans are also pressing for offsets for any potential add-ons, including in areas like defense.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), a prominent member of the House Freedom Caucus, said this week that he supports anomalies to help defense programs, but stressed the importance of government funding being frozen at current levels.
“I’m happy to give defense some of those anomalies again, so long as the overall spending level is staying flat,” he told The Hill on Tuesday.
“My view of anomalies is you work anomalies into the top-line number of the freeze,” he said, adding that “if the anomalies cost, then you got to find some savings somewhere.”
Asked about the possibility of anomalies being off set in the forthcoming funding plan, Cole told reporters on Tuesday that negotiators “are staying roughly within the numbers.”
“These anomalies are things the administration has requested,” he said, adding that “every member can make their own choice.”
