House GOP leaders are looking to punt a deal on government funding into early next year, hoping to leave it until after a new administration has been sworn into the White House and possible new majorities are settled in both chambers of Congress.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is expected to unveil his plan for government spending when lawmakers reconvene next week. The plan would extend the funding deadline into March 2025, a source familiar with the matter told the Washington Examiner. The five-month continuing resolution would extend the same funding levels that were agreed to for fiscal 2024 by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden.
However, the continuing resolution would not include the “side deals” hammered out by the pair, which could put it in peril with Democrats in both the House and Senate who would likely reject that legislation.
The stopgap spending deal would also attach the SAVE Act, a bill negotiated by Johnson and former President Donald Trump that would require proof of citizenship for voter registration, a source familiar with the planning told the Washington Examiner. The inclusion of that legislation likely makes any sort of spending deal dead on arrival in the Democratic-led Senate.
Even if it did pass the upper chamber, the White House has already vowed to veto it.
The proposal to delay a government spending deal until next year comes as Johnson has faced pressure from those on his right flank to “use our leverage” to ensure Democrats cannot use Biden’s final months in a lame-duck period to push through a massive spending bill that advances the party’s agenda. Instead, the group wants to delay the process until next year after they hope Trump is sworn in for a second term.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) decried that proposition, claiming it is the “latest example” of Republicans “holding the government hostage” to secure their agenda priorities even at the risk of a government shutdown.
“We cannot fund the government—with full-year funding bills or a continuing resolution—without the support of both Democrats and Republicans in the House and the Senate,” DeLauro said in a statement. “But just like last year, House Republicans have taken the process of funding the government down a partisan path—forcing us to consider extreme, harmful funding bills that have no chance of becoming law.”
But that could be easier said than done for Johnson. Several of his most hard-line members in the House GOP caucus are threatening to vote against a final spending deal if the SAVE Act is not attached.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was among the first to make such a demand, told the Washington Examiner that she has even spoken with Trump about threatening a government shutdown if certain policies were not attached — something she said the former president approves.
“President Trump overwhelmingly supports it,” Greene said. “I’ve talked about it with him multiple times. He definitely supports putting the CR and SAVE Act together and fighting for it, even if [that means] a government shutdown. Fighting for election integrity is worth it because if we don’t have fair elections, if we don’t have elections we can trust, we don’t have a government. And that’s really the reality.”
Government spending is set to expire at midnight on Oct. 1, giving lawmakers just three weeks to pass some sort of extension when they return from their six-week recess on Monday.
House leaders initially planned to pass all 12 of their appropriations bills before adjourning in late July, an ambitious goal they failed to meet due to intraparty disagreement. Instead, the House only managed to pass five, with the others either failing on the floor or being pulled from consideration because of a lack of support.
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Meanwhile, the Senate has not passed any of the bills, largely acknowledging the spending fight will rest in the hands of the next administration. Even so, House Democrats have largely blamed Republicans for the lack of a finalized budget.
“Just like last year, House Republicans’ refusal to meet House Democrats at the table has left us without time to pass all 12 bills before the end of September,” DeLauro said. “We need a continuing resolution because House Republicans let their most extreme members drive the ship. Let us hope they do not drive us straight to a Republican shutdown.”