Wednesday, March 8, 2019 (Reuters) – The Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives released their short-term bill to fund the government for six months on Saturday. This is to escape a possible shutdown on March 14.
The plan would keep the government running until September, which is the end of the fiscal year for 2025. It would mostly keep spending at the same level as it was during the last administration.
A staff member for the Republican leadership told reporters on Saturday that the House will likely vote on the 99-page funding bill on Tuesday.
Aides said that the funding package, which is called a “continuing resolution” because it would keep the money that was approved last year, had been carefully planned with the White House.
Some conservative Republicans who have voted against similar stopgap spending bills in the past have changed their minds after hearing that the president supports them. This is a big problem in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson leads a narrow Republican majority (218–214).
This short-term spending bill does not include the cuts that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency recently suggested. Johnson has said that these cuts can be talked about when the government spends next year.
Still, Republican and Democratic appropriation negotiators have been trying to work together for a few weeks now to pass the 12 government spending bills that are needed for the 2025 fiscal year. But the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal workforce and threats to withhold congressionally-appropriated spending have made it impossible to reach a deal.
Friday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said that the Democrats in his chamber could not back a Republican plan for spending that was based on party lines.
Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat in the House, said in a statement after the funding bill was released, “I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution. It is a power grab for the White House and further lets unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump steal from the American people.”
“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.”
But Republicans in the House say the funding bill is a “clean” continuing resolution because it doesn’t include any extra money. Also, the stopgap funding bill only covers spending that people can choose not to do. It does not cover spending that has to be done for things like Social Security retirement payments or the Medicare and Medicaid government health care programs.
Aides to the House Republican leadership said that the Republicans’ bill would cut non-defense spending by about $13 billion while increasing defence spending by about $6 billion.
Some of the suggested increases in defence spending are already approved, like giving lower-level military workers more money to pay for things like building submarines. Republicans in the U.S. Senate have been pushing for more money to be spent on defence than what was approved by Congress during the time of former President Joe Biden.
Staffers for the Republican leadership said that the House funding plan includes a request from the Trump administration for more money for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which deports people, because the agency is running short on funds.
In this funding plan, too, there is a $20 billion reversal for the Internal Revenue Service. This was also included in the December stopgap government spending plan.
Trump has also said that he supports it. If this happens, Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, will be able to focus on continuing the tax cuts that Trump put in place during his first term.
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