The House is set to vote today on a $9 billion-plus rescissions package, cutting huge chunks of money from U.S. foreign aid and $1.1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps fund PBS and NPR.
Republican moderates don’t love it – and Democrats hate it – but the White House-drafted package is likely to pass, House GOP leaders tell us.
It’s the latest blow to Congress’ power of the purse. And it’s only going to get worse.
While the calendar says it’s only mid-June, it’s already late in the FY2026 appropriations season. Neither the House nor Senate Appropriations committees are doing well on their 12 annual spending bills.
And another continuing resolution to avoid a government shutdown this fall looks all but certain at this point. The only questions are how long any CR lasts, and is a spending deal possible at all.
House GOP appropriators will have four bills marked up by the full committee by tomorrow. But these bills are written to a Trump-proposed level that cuts tens of billions from domestic programs. Democrats and the Senate won’t go for that.
Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee won’t even have a topline number until after the Republicans approve a reconciliation bill, which means July at the earliest. And House Republicans may oppose any deal reached by Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Patty Murray (Wash.), chair and ranking Democrat on the panel.
It’s a tough time to be an appropriator.
“If I were betting man right now, given the current environment, we will appropriate money by CR for the foreseeable future,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), who serves on Senate Appropriations. “So if you have a chance to change from the Approps Committee to Finance, you probably ought to do it.”
“The question is, do you have a long-term CR again or do you have a CR because you’re negotiating?” added House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.). “Let’s assume we pass the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’ I don’t think we know what that does. Does that break things loose or not? We just don’t know yet.”
Cole noted: “There’s plenty of people on our side who like a CR. It could easily happen again. It’s bad governance.”
Even more importantly, we’ve spoken to members and senators in both parties who believe that the future of the Appropriations panels — once one of the most coveted assignments in Congress — is in doubt, to the detriment of the entire institution.
Both sides blame the other for the appropriations dysfunction, although more should probably fall on Republicans. Look at the House Freedom Caucus and what it’s done to the appropriations process.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy lost his job over a CR, and Speaker Mike Johnson has been pushed to the wall on the issue too. Remember that Johnson promised early on in his speakership that he wouldn’t pass any more CRs.
A government shutdown is definitely on the table this fall too. A number of Republicans believe President Donald Trump would be just fine with that — especially if the “One Big, Beautiful Bill” Act is already signed into law. That measure includes $175 billion in border security funding, plus another $150 billion for the Pentagon. There’s also a debt-limit increase that’s good for two years.
“I think there are probably some people in the administration who think quite frankly that they have more flexibility under a CR or even a shutdown,” said Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), who chairs the Defense subcommittee on House Appropriations. “I think that shocks a lot of members here.”
To the non-Capitol Hill world, a CR doesn’t sound like a big deal. Yet it gives a president and White House officials enormous discretion over federal spending while putting Congress at a huge disadvantage in terms of oversight.
Add to this equation Trump and OMB Director Russ Vought, who are eager to challenge Congress’ power over the purse. Even Republicans complain that the White House hasn’t submitted a full FY2026 budget, stymieing appropriators’ ability to write spending bills.
“If we do two CRs in a row, it will be a self-inflicted wound by Senate Republican appropriators and Senate Republicans to diminish not just the power of the committee but to diminish Congress’s power of the purse,” said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), an appropriator.
“Any long-term CR plays into what it seems this administration would like, which is bills with no guardrails,” said Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.), another appropriator.
Republicans bash Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer for not cutting an omnibus deal in the spring, which they say forced a CR to be enacted. Schumer and Murray were holding out for language binding Trump to spend money as Congress appropriated.
Democrats loudly counter that they were justified in making the demand because Trump and Vought have done just that since coming into office – spent money (or not) as they wanted to, despite the 1974 Budget and Impoundment Control Act. That law requires the president to spend money approved by Congress.
However, Republicans noted then and now that there was no way they were going to go along with new restrictions on Trump’s spending latitude. “You’re not gonna have a Republican Senate and the House limit a Republican president,” Cole said.
So what to think about all this? Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on House Appropriations, gets the last word.
“To hell with the Congress,” DeLauro said. “It’s bad for the American people. It’s bad for the American people. They’re lying about what’s in these bills. That’s the tragedy.”
GOP romps again: Republicans easily won Wednesday night’s annual congressional baseball game, defeating Democrats 13-2. It’s the fifth GOP win in a row.
A record 31,000-plus tickets were sold for the game, which raised $2.8 million for charity.
