House Republican holdouts appear closer to supporting a plan to avert a partial government shutdown after a meeting with President Trump.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus and other fiscal conservatives who rarely, if ever, support government funding extensions trekked to the White House on Wednesday as the March 14 deadline to fund the government rapidly approaches.
Republicans are trying to coalesce around an effective year-long stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution or CR, to keep the lights on in Washington and prevent a slowdown on other work to pass Mr. Trump’s agenda.
The president supports the CR — the third of the fiscal year that would last through its end on Sept. 30 — and is trying to limit GOP defections to no more than one amid Democratic opposition.
Rep. Thomas Massie, Kentucky Republican, appears to be a hard “no,” so the other holdouts all need to be swayed. The sit down with Mr. Trump appeared to get many closer to “yes.”
Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, Maryland Republican, said fiscal hawks are “going to work toward getting that continuing resolution in the form where we could pass it.”
“The president has said he needs this for his agenda,” Mr. Harris said. “We support the president’s agenda.”
Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, said the stopgap would effectively put a ceiling on what the executive branch can spend, while still letting Mr. Trump use his authority to “spend what he thinks is appropriate on behalf of the taxpayer.”
Rep. Tim Burchett, Tennessee Republican, told The Washington Times he was still in “listening” mode after the White House meeting.
He told the president he was concerned the savings from the Department of Government Efficiency would go to the “war pimps at the Pentagon.”
“He said he was going back to me on some information,” Mr. Burchett said. “So I was pleased with that.”
Republicans are confident they can get enough “yes” votes and won’t need to rely on Democrats to bail them out, like on past funding extensions.
“Absolutely, we’re not going to need their votes,” Rep. Ralph Norman, South Carolina Republican, told The Times.
While Mr. Trump was courting GOP holdouts on the CR, the top four appropriators were meeting at the Capitol to continue bipartisan negotiations on setting new spending levels for fiscal 2025.
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins, Maine Republican, and ranking member Patty Murray, Washington Democrat, both left the meeting teasing a coming announcement.
House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, said he and his counterparts have agreed on a topline spending level but still have some disagreements to work through on the accounting methods that get them there before announcing a deal.
Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, his Democratic counterpart, said a topline deal was “imminent” and downplayed the last-minute hangups.
Ms. DeLauro and Ms. Murray oppose the CR through September and are pushing for a short stopgap to allow just enough time to finish work on the regular 12 appropriations bills. Ms. Collins favors a short-term CR but said she will back the longer version if that’s what the House passes.
Mr. Cole is pushing the stopgap through September, which is backed by his leadership.
“We can’t have a situation where a government shutdown is threatened every two weeks,” he said. “We have other things to do.”
He said negotiations could still continue on the 12 full-year appropriations bills, all or a portion of which could later be passed to replace the stopgap’s flat funding.
The pending topline appropriations deal does not appear to resolve a partisan disagreement over whether to restrict the president from being able to block or shift funds Congress approves, as Democrats demanded.
Mr. Cole said Republicans will never agree to that, but Ms. DeLauro does not appear to have given up on it.
“Let’s get the process started. Let’s move,” she said. “We all want to make sure that money that is appropriated goes to where it’s been intended to go.”
