Battle lines are emerging on Capitol Hill in the fight to avert a government shutdown in three weeks — and it’s not just Republicans vs. Democrats.
On one side, fiscal hawks are joining with the White House to keep federal agencies running on static funding levels, ideally into January or longer. On the other, Democrats and some top Republicans want to punt no further than November to buy congressional negotiators more time to cut a cross-party compromise on fresh funding totals for federal programs.
In the end, the standoff could hinge on Speaker Mike Johnson’s appetite for trying to pass a funding package backed by President Donald Trump but not Democrats, as he did in the spring — and whether Senate Democrats once again capitulate rather than see government operations grind to a halt on Oct. 1.
“They jammed us last time,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), a top appropriator, said in an interview. “And I am encouraging my Republican friends who want to do appropriations to understand that that won’t work this time.”
Even more irate after Trump’s latest move to unilaterally cancel almost $5 billion in foreign aid through a so-called pocket rescission, Democrats are warning there will be a funding lapse if Republicans don’t negotiate with them. And while they’re being cautious not to box themselves in with ultimatums on funding totals or specific policy demands, they’re starting to flex their muscles by floating concessions Republicans could make in exchange for support across the aisle.
That includes making a deal by the end of the year to head off the expiration of enhanced health insurance subsidies that would result in premium hikes come January for millions of Americans.
There are glimmers of bipartisan talks happening behind the scenes: Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently discussed passing a short-term spending patch until November or December, though no decisions were made.
And top House and Senate appropriators are gelling behind a hybrid approach: attempting a bill with a full year of updated funding levels for the USDA, the Department of Veterans Affairs and congressional operations, tied to a short-term extension for other agencies, to allow for more negotiations.
But there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical about a bipartisan funding deal coming together, with Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior appropriator, putting the odds of a shutdown at “50-50, perhaps higher.”
As of late last week, the top Senate leaders — Republican John Thune and Democrat Chuck Schumer — haven’t yet spoken about the upcoming funding deadline, in a further sign that cross-party talks are still nascent.
Meanwhile, House hard-liners, backed by some of their conservative Senate counterparts, appear to be digging in to demand a lengthy stopgap bill, rather than a short-term patch meant to facilitate a more comprehensive bipartisan funding measure down the road. One Republican, granted anonymity to share the conservative strategy, said fiscal hawks want a funding patch “to 2026” or for the entirety of the coming fiscal year “if we can get it.”
Continually running the government on stopgaps is part of White House budget director Russ Vought’s strategy to shrink federal spending as he roots for the government funding process to be “less bipartisan.”
Those kick-the-can funding bills give the White House more leeway to shift cash while depriving Democrats of any increases in non-defense funding and GOP defense hawks the military budget increases they seek. Then, using party-line measures like the domestic-policy megabill and the $9 billion clawbacks package Congress cleared this summer, Republicans can add or subtract funding without needing to rely on the votes of Senate Democrats.
The White House predicts that Trump’s more recent, unilateral cancellation of $4.9 billion will only help build support among GOP fiscal hawks for a “clean” continuing resolution, or CR, that simply drags out current funding levels for weeks or months more. In this scenario, Democrats will have to fall in line, a White House official told reporters late last month after Trump nixed the foreign aid funding.
“It’s very hard for me to believe that they’re going to oppose a clean CR that would cause them to be responsible for a government shutdown,” said the official, granted anonymity to speak candidly.
The Senate’s top Democratic appropriator, Patty Murray of Washington, warned it won’t work for Republicans to blame Democrats: If the GOP goes it alone, she said last week, “well, then, that is a Republican shutdown.”
Democrats are also still grappling with how the pocket rescission will factor into their government funding demands. Schatz called it a “point of friction” but added, “I’m not prepared to articulate any red lines to you.”
Notwithstanding the administration’s latest attempt to revoke funding, setting static spending levels through next September would be a nonstarter for many members of both parties. For Democrats, going into next year with a stopgap bill would force them to give up their biggest point of leverage — another end-of-the-year government funding deadline — to try to get a deal on extending the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that will expire Dec. 31.
On the GOP side, some conservatives view a full-year stopgap bill as locking in spending levels set under President Joe Biden, while defense hawks warn that it undermines the military. Those GOP divisions would make it harder, if not impossible, for Johnson and the White House to try to repeat their go-it-alone playbook from the spring.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said he didn’t think a full-year, flat-funded spending bill would come to fruition: “We can talk about it all we want, we always do. Same plot, different actors.”
Passage of a lengthy funding patch would especially sting for Republicans appropriators, who are quietly trying to retain relevance amid Trump’s escalating assault on Congress’ power through tactics to shift, freeze and cancel funding that lawmakers previously approved.
House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole, who consistently refrains from criticizing the president, told his underlings last week that the best way for lawmakers to protect Congress’ power of the purse is to negotiate a bipartisan funding agreement now, rather than fall back on a continuing resolution.
“The way to be successful is, get a deal done. That’s what we need to do,” the Oklahoma Republican told fellow appropriators during a recent markup. “But please don’t have any illusions that we’re cavalierly surrendering our power.”
Still, Cole hasn’t received the blessing of his leadership to begin cross-party negotiations.
“We are in discussions now with the administration, with the Senate, about how to proceed,” he said. “We don’t have any final goal or deadline. But I would prefer to get this done sooner rather than later, and I don’t want another CR.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.