House Speaker Mike Johnson and Republicans are largely united behind a plan to avert a partial government shutdown in the coming week, while Democratic leaders are threatening to withhold their support of a funding extension over what they say are partisan nonstarters.
Typically Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, has relied on House Democrats to pass stopgap bills, known as continuing resolutions or CRs, to keep the lights on in Washington due to the razor-thin majority Republicans have held in the lower chamber since he first won the job in 2023.
Some House Republicans rarely, if ever, support those kinds of measures. But in an about face, many fiscal conservatives, particularly from the House Freedom Caucus, are ready to support the impending yearlong CR because it would prevent a derailment in the GOP’s quest to pass President Trump’s agenda.
This time with the March 14 deadline to fund the government fast approaching, Republicans are painting Democrats as the ones who want to careen the government into a partial shutdown.
Democratic appropriators already oppose the CR, but would support a short-term measure to give more time to negotiate new spending bills to finish out this fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.
But those negotiations hit a speed bump when Democrats demanded language that would restrict Mr. Trump from using his executive powers to block or shift funding that Congress already approved.
During an appearance on Fox News’ “Outnumbered” on Friday, the speaker accused Democrats of “trying to engineer a shutdown of the government” with their demands, and reiterated that Republicans “will be running a clean CR next week.”
“What that will do is allow us time, allow the White House down [through] the administration, to continue the [Department of Government Efficiency] efforts finding all these extraordinary levels of savings and waste, fraud and abuse,” Mr. Johnson said.
“We’ll be able to incorporate that into the budgeting for [fiscal year] 2026, which will start almost immediately after we’re done next week,” he said.
Still, while fiscal conservatives are willing to play ball with the speaker on the impending stopgap bill, their support is not 100% guaranteed. House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris, Maryland Republican, emphasized that the White House’s willingness to withhold funding, coupled with the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency, made them more comfortable with supporting a stopgap bill.
But first they must read it. The text of the yearlong stopgap is expected to be released over the weekend.
While Mr. Johnson blasted his Democratic counterparts for their unwillingness to support the stopgap bill, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, doubled down on his position that the current Republican offering was “not acceptable.”
Mr. Jeffries, in a letter with his leadership team sent out to House Democrats on Friday, accused Republicans of using their grip on the House, Senate and White House to “destroy the programs taxpayers deserve in order to fund tax cuts for their billionaire donors and wealthy corporations.”
The top House Democrat said Republicans planned to introduce a partisan funding extension that threatened to cut healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans programs. Democrats have raised concerns with the House GOP’s budget resolution, which was passed last month and included instructions to the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the panel that oversees Medicaid, to find at least $880 billion in savings.
Lawmakers on the panel believe the only way to hit that mark is to find savings within the healthcare program. Republicans have pitched the measure as a relatively clean bill that would keep funding flat.
“House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts,” Mr. Jeffries said. “Medicaid is our redline.”
— Lindsey McPherson contributed to this story.
