Congress is walking right up to the line of another political crisis once again.
It’s deadline week. The House and Senate both need to pass a funding bill by midnight Friday or else the federal government shuts down. Here’s the main event: The 99-page CR that House Republicans released on Saturday.
House GOP leaders plan to go to the Rules Committee today to set the guidelines for considering this bill on the floor. They tentatively plan for a floor vote on Tuesday. The House is scheduled to leave town following that vote. House Democrats are set to hold their annual retreat during the latter part of the week in Leesburg, Va.
This CR would fund federal agencies through Sept. 30. House Republicans say it’s a “clean” resolution that keeps spending at the current level. Democrats have a very different view of what the package would do. More on that below.
We’ll say this upfront: It doesn’t feel like a shutdown is going to happen, although there’s still a chance because, well, this is Congress. Every time we think we’ve reached new levels of silliness, lawmakers up the ante.
Remember: This is a 204-day CR. We’re talking about a package that locks in most of the Biden-era spending levels that the federal government has been operating under during the last year.
President Donald Trump has demanded all Republicans vote to pass the CR – “NO DISSENT,” he tweeted – so that the GOP has time to push through his legislative agenda over the next few months. Trump is aware that a shutdown isn’t what he needs less than two months into his second term.
Of course, setting a government funding deadline in mid-March was an ill-advised decision. But Speaker Mike Johnson wanted to remain speaker during the 119th Congress, so he moved the deadline from December to now.
House and Senate appropriators sought for months to find a bipartisan compromise on the FY 2025 spending bills.
Yet with Trump and mega-billionaire Elon Musk laying off tens of thousands of federal workers and attempting to unilaterally eliminate departments and agencies, Democratic leaders insisted on language that would limit how Trump can spend money. Democrats also want Congress to pass individual spending bills.
Neither of these are operative at this moment. There’s no way that Republicans would agree to any provision restricting Trump. And it’s far too late to pass an omnibus. Furthermore, Johnson would get hammered for doing so by his conservative colleagues. So this CR is probably the only way to avert a shutdown.
The key to what happens this week is whether Johnson can pass a rule and the CR itself with only House Republican votes. As we’ve noted repeatedly over the last few days, we expect only a handful of House Democrats – at the most – to vote for this resolution. Meaning Johnson and House GOP leaders must get to 217 votes on their own. GOP leadership feels like they have a pathway to that goal. Johnson and his top lieutenants feel like they can dare Democrats to vote against the measure.
But if Johnson can’t limit his defections to near zero, then the speaker will have to find a way to cut a deal with Democrats. Given all the bad blood between the two parties at the moment, that deal would be hard to reach.
House Democratic leaders also feel pretty good right now about holding their no votes in line. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ statement over the weekend declared, “We are voting No.”
Here’s the Dem whip notice from Saturday night urging a no vote.
We used Enbloc AI — Punchbowl News’ proprietary data platform — to come up with a list of House Democrats who frequently vote with Republicans on government spending bills. There are a number of them.
Jet fumes? If the CR passes the House, Senate Democrats would be in a tough spot, as we noted last week. Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.), the top Democratic appropriator, says the House’s CR only enables Trump and Musk to keep slashing federal payrolls at will. But several Democratic senators have suggested they’d vote for the CR if a shutdown became the only alternative. At least seven Democratic votes are necessary for Senate passage. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is expected to be a no, further complicating matters.
While there’s no doubt they’ll put up a fight like progressives want, we don’t expect Senate Democrats to shut down the government. This would completely undermine their messaging efforts on Musk and DOGE.
The CR, assuming the House passes it, would also be the only thing standing between senators and their first recess week of 2025.
Democrats’ issues with the bill. Democrats have legitimate policy concerns with this CR. Those concerns were enumerated in a seven-page memo that Murray released on Saturday night.
Democrats complain the proposed legislation gives too much flexibility for the Trump administration on a whole host of fronts including clean energy grants, money for combatting the fentanyl crisis and CDC programs. According to Democrats, the proposal also shortchanges agencies ranging from the Army Corps of Engineers to the VA to election security.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called the CR proposal a “power grab” by Trump and Musk.
