House Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled his yearlong government funding extension that he hopes can blast through Democratic opposition and pass with only Republican votes.
Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, and the rest of the House GOP largely view the stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, as a way to keep their plan to pass President Trump’s agenda on track.
The funding extension would keep the government open until Sept. 30, or the end of the current fiscal year.
While Congress has until March 14 to fund the government, the speaker plans to vote on the bill by Tuesday, largely because the House will be out for a minibreak starting Wednesday to let House Democrats hold an issues and policy conference in Virginia.
House Republican leadership aides described the 99-page bill in a call with reporters ahead of the measure’s release on Saturday as “quite literally as clean a CR that you can draft for these purposes,” spending less than the fiscal 2024 cycle.
“There’s no Christmas tree effect here,” a leadership aide said. “It’s just what we need to fund the government.”
The CR does include a $8 billion increase in defense spending from last year, which will likely please defense hawks concerned about keeping funding levels flat and the effects that could have on the military. It also includes over $9 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and keeps the freeze on $20 billion in IRS funds.
Plus, the deal drops nondefense spending by $13 billion, with defense and nondefense spending coming in below the spending caps set by the Fiscal Reduction Act.
Defense spending clocked in at over $892 billion, while nondefense spending sat at $708 billion. Republicans were able to find spending reductions by not including community project funding, better known as earmarks.
Still, the funding extension tees up a collision course with House Democrats, who have made their opposition to the deal clear.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called the measure a “power grab” for the White House and Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency.
“By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire,” the Connecticut Democrat said in a statement.
Normally, Democrats are crucial for funding extensions, but this time Mr. Johnson may not need them despite his razor-thin majority.
Even fiscal hawks in the GOP’s House Freedom Caucus and beyond, who rarely vote for a CR, have signaled they would support the measure because they don’t want to hinder the president’s agenda.
They needed convincing from Mr. Trump himself during a meeting at the White House this week. They were assured that the bill would be a mostly clean funding extension that largely froze funding at its current levels while including some tweaks, known as anomalies, to defense spending and spending bumps for carrying out the Trump administration’s deportation plan.
Moving through the Senate could be a challenge, too. 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.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, blasted the measure for not including language that would restrict the White House’s ability to decide whether to spend congressionally appropriated funds.
“Congress — not Trump or Musk — should decide through careful bipartisan negotiations how to invest in our states and districts — and whether critical programs that support students, veterans’ families and patients get funded or not,” Ms. Murray said.
