House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris told The Washington Times that he and other fiscal hard-liners are willing to support a stopgap bill continuing government funding at Biden administration levels because they know President Trump won’t spend it all.
The House is set to vote early next week on the bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR. Republicans hope to achieve what was once thought impossible: passing it without needing Democratic votes.
“We’re going to deliver for the president on this,” Mr. Harris, Maryland Republican, said in an interview in his Capitol Hill office.
Mr. Trump has endorsed the stopgap, which would continue current funding through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year. This would freeze spending, avert a government shutdown and keep the rest of his legislative agenda on track.
Republican fiscal hawks, many in the Freedom Caucus, have “rarely — some never — voted for a continuing resolution,” Mr. Harris readily acknowledged. He described the upcoming vote as part of several “interesting paradigm shifts going on in Washington, D.C., right now, and ones that we wouldn’t have predicted.”
That shift is heavily influenced by Mr. Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk.
Without the significant savings DOGE has uncovered, “there would be more hesitation among Republicans to go with a clean CR,” Mr. Harris said.
The other linchpin for fiscal conservatives’ support is confidence that the president and his budget director, Russ Vought, will use executive powers to withhold funding already appropriated by Congress.
Mr. Harris agreed with Mr. Vought’s view that spending bills set “a ceiling, not a concrete floor,” effectively giving the administration control over what funding is and isn’t spent.
“I think, given that, and the fact that they have withheld funding, means we can vote for a CR,” Mr. Harris said.
Although the Freedom Caucus appears mainly on board with supporting a funding extension, the text of the stopgap bill has not been released and the details will matter to on-the-fence members.
Mr. Harris said he would support the bill if it adheres to the provisions outlined during the conservatives’ meeting Wednesday with Mr. Trump. That included a few “anomalies” that loosen restrictions that stopgaps provide around starting programs and contracts and a small bump in spending on immigration enforcement.
Fiscal hawks largely want to keep funding levels flat, which Mr. Harris said they were assured would be the case. He said language giving Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “adequate discretion” to shift funding would go a long way toward satisfying defense hawks, who typically oppose flat funding extensions.
“It will cost us much more if we don’t freeze spending at that level,” Mr. Harris said. “I think the fiscal conservatives will look at it and say, ‘This is a new era.’”
Even with the assurances, Mr. Harris said, not every member of the Freedom Caucus was “all the way there.”
He said he thinks the bill could pass the House with mostly Republican votes and predicted that a few Democrats might join them despite staunch opposition from Democratic leadership in the House.
House Republicans have been leading the charge on the stopgap bill, so they are gambling that their Senate counterparts will be fully supportive.
“We’ve had some input into their language, but not a lot,” said Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan M. Collins, Maine Republican.
Sen. Rand Paul, Kentucky Republican, said he would oppose the stopgap, so at least eight Democrats must vote for it to clear the filibuster hurdle.
Mr. Harris was not worried. He predicted that Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania and other Democrats would support a “relatively clean” stopgap bill.
He noted that Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, would lead the opposition to sink the bill in the upper chamber.
“If he wants to shut the government down, let’s play it out,” Mr. Harris said.
