House Republican leaders are charging ahead with a GOP plan to extend government funding, rejecting Democratic pleas for bipartisan talks and escalating the odds of a shutdown at the end of the month.
Behind Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), GOP leaders on Tuesday unveiled a short-term spending package, known as a continuing resolution (CR), to extend government funding largely at current levels through Nov. 21.
The package includes $30 million in new funding for lawmaker security — a last-minute addition in direct response to last week’s fatal shooting of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk — but does not address the Affordable Care Act tax credits and other health care issues as Democrats have demanded.
Indeed, House Democratic leaders wasted no time blasting the package with warnings that it will lead to a drastic spike in health care costs and cause millions of people to lose their health coverage. They’re vowing to oppose it in overwhelming numbers, leaving Johnson with the task of uniting his restive GOP conference behind the legislation in order to move it through the lower chamber this week.
“The House Republican-only spending bill fails to meet the needs of the American people and does nothing to stop the looming healthcare crisis,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said in a joint statement. “By refusing to work with Democrats, Republicans are steering our country straight toward a shutdown.”
From the minority, Democrats are powerless to block the bill in the House, where Johnson can move the legislation with solely Republican votes. If he’s successful, it will repeat the scenario from earlier this year, when Republicans sent a largely “clean” funding measure to the Senate and dared Democrats — at least seven of whom are needed to send the bill to President Trump’s desk — to block it and force a shutdown.
Schumer, in that case, helped Republicans approve the bill. This time, he’s signaling his opposition, raising the odds of a partial shutdown on Oct. 1.
But the Senate comes later. Johnson’s strategy first requires GOP leaders to win over a handful of conservative spending hawks in the House who have threatened to oppose the bill over deficit spending concerns.
At least four House Republicans are balking at the CR: Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), and Warren Davidson (Ohio). Greene said it would be “disloyalty” to Trump to extend funding levels first approved under former President Biden, while others object to government spending or procedure.
If Democrats are united against the measure, Republicans can afford to lose only two GOP votes and still pass the bill. If Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), the lone House Democrat to join Republicans on the March CR, crosses the aisle again, the number of allowable GOP defections rises to three. (Golden declined to comment on Tuesday).
But there is still time to arm-twist ahead of the vote. Davidson on Tuesday said he has questions about the strategy on funding going forward, and Spartz has been known to stake out opposition on funding bills before voting in favor of them.
Democrats, meanwhile, are demanding that the CR roll back the GOP cuts to a slew of health care programs, including Medicare, Medicaid, the National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They also want the bill to extend ObamaCare tax credits scheduled to expire at the end of the year.
If those issues are not addressed, they’ve warned, then Republicans will be on their own — and will own any shutdown that follows.
“If they don’t want to address the impending health care crisis, they can explain that,” said Rep. Pete Aguilar (Calif.), head of the House Democratic Caucus. “But they control the levers of government. It’s on them to put forward a plan that funds the government.”
Johnson has flatly rejected rolling back the Medicaid cuts and reforms that Republicans passed into law earlier this year.
“Zero chance that we will do that,” Johnson said.
And the ObamaCare subsidies expiring at the end of the calendar year, Johnson said, are “a December policy issue, not a September funding issue.”
Democrats say the issue is more urgent than that, because insurance companies will send out rate letters in October, and ObamaCare’s open enrollment begins Nov. 1. If patients get spooked by the higher rates expected under current law, many are likely to forego coverage altogether.
“The harm that will visit the American public if we don’t get something changed on health care is far greater than the reputational damage that we might suffer for voting no,” said Rep. Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.). “Our moments of leverage are few and far between here. So this is an opportunity for us to deliver.”
Another major sticking point relates to Trump’s strategy of selectively refusing to fund programs he doesn’t like — a controversial tool known as a rescission. Because the Constitution gives Congress unilateral powers to allocate federal funds, Democrats say Trump’s moves are patently illegal. They want language inserted in the bill that would explicitly prohibit the administration from withholding, shifting or spending funds in ways that contradict Congress’s intent.
“They have to stop, once we come to an agreement, stealing funds that we have agreed on,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), the senior Democrat on the Appropriations Committee. “We can’t go down that road again.”
GOP leaders are leaning heavily on the member security funding, both as a sweetener and a cudgel for those lawmakers vowing to oppose the CR. The issue has been front and center on Capitol Hill since Kirk’s death last week, and lawmakers in both parties have clamored for a boost in their allowance for personal protection.
Still, Democrats are making clear that the $30 million in new security funds is hardly enough to compensate for the rest of the CR package, which they’re characterizing as a threat to the health and well-being of millions of Americans.
“We live in a dangerous situation, we always have,” said Rep. Juan Vargas (D-Calif.). “But not because of that are we going to vote for some crappy bill that hurts people and their health care — that continues to take us down this road to perdition.”
