Enough House Republicans ranging from conservative spending critics to those who want a bigger defense budget have come out against Speaker Mike Johnson’s stopgap spending strategy to imperil passage, as leadership tries to rally the troops to back the plan during a vote that’s currently expected Wednesday.
At least five Republicans have said they will not support the continuing resolution or are leaning against it, and Johnson can only afford to lose four members of his party and still pass the bill if there are no absences and all Democrats remain united against it.
While some of the declared “no” votes are conservatives who typically vote against stopgap spending bills, Armed Services Chairman Mike D. Rogers, R-Ala., is also against the measure.
“It’s terrible for defense,” said Rogers, who added that he hopes other members of his committee join him in opposition. With the exception of a nearly $2 billion add for a Virginia-class submarine, the CR would mostly flat-fund defense programs at current levels for six months.
Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Ken Calvert, R-Calif., also expressed reservations about the plan’s length, though he said he’d end up supporting it. “It’s the largest enterprise in the world, you can’t run it under that for that period of time, so hopefully we can get that worked out a lot sooner,” Calvert said.
The Congressional Budget Office said the current bill would fund defense programs at an $890 billion rate for six months, $5 billion less than the 1 percent boost promised by last year’s spending caps law. Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III laid out the litany of problems that would entail in a weekend letter to top appropriators.
And to make matters worse, defense and related spending would be sliced across the board by over $40 billion by CBO calculations if Congress ends up extending the CR beyond April 30 — which Democrats argue becomes more likely if they only have a month to negotiate a final funding package. Nondefense accounts wouldn’t be cut because stopgap funding is already below the cap.
For conservative critics, the bill’s lack of any funding cuts is a problem. It would continue current funding levels, in some cases at higher rates, for half the fiscal year — a far cry from the more than 6 percent cuts on average to nondefense accounts initially included in the House’s fiscal 2025 spending bills.
The inclusion of separate legislation dubbed the “Safeguard American Voter Eligibility” or “SAVE” Act — to require proof of citizenship before registering to vote —wasn’t enough to mollify critics like Thomas Massie, R-Ky. Massie argued Monday it won’t be part of the final bill anyway after getting stripped by the Senate.
“I hate to break this to you,” Massie told fellow Rules panel Republicans. “You ain’t getting the SAVE Act. It is not going to stay on this bill. Why? Because we’re going to cave.”
Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., said “quite a few” Republicans would join him in opposition, arguing the voting restriction bill was an attempt to pressure anti-spending Republicans into supporting it.
“I think it’s actually a way to force Republicans who are against the frivolous spending to basically be [in] a ‘damned if you do, damned if you don’t’ scenario,” Mills said. “But I’ll stand strong, I’ve never supported a CR, I won’t support a CR.”
Others who are publicly against the current bill include Matt Rosendale of Montana and Jim Banks of Indiana, while Tennessee’s Tim Burchett has said he’s leaning against it.
Veterans fix, or lack of?
Even before it became evident that GOP conservatives and defense hawks might sink the package, numerous issues emerged with the underlying text that were headed for a thorough scrubbing in the Senate even if it passes the House.
One that House Republicans themselves identified would get a fix in a managers amendment that House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole submitted.
The amendment from Cole, R-Okla., which would be “self-executed,” or incorporated into the base text upon adoption of the rule, would renew the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program through the March 28 expiration date in the CR. House Democrats took aim at that omission from the earlier text, arguing it would prevent $8 billion from flowing to the states during that time to help support more than 1 million low-income families.
TANF extensions have been regular features of stopgap funding bills in past years.
The biggest political headache for Republicans was shaping up to be their decision to leave out $12 billion in White House-requested funds for veterans health care to ensure no disruptions through the end of the year. The administration identified the shortfall in current appropriations in July, after record-setting enrollment for VA benefits and insurance claims based on newly expanded coverage for veterans who got sick after exposure to toxic substances during their overseas tours.
The VA is on track to receive $133 billion in advance appropriations for fiscal 2025 as part of the current fiscal year’s funding law enacted in March. On top of that, there are unspent balances that the agency could pull from in a pinch, bringing the total available to over $140 billion. The White House’s “anomalies” request would tack on an extra $12 billion.
That money is not included in the base text House Republicans unveiled Friday night. Instead, language is included that would allow the VA to spend existing funds at whatever rate needed to ensure no service cutbacks. The combination of existing appropriations and added flexibility to meet the needs should be enough to tide the agency over until lawmakers write a final Military Construction-VA bill before the March deadline, at which time more money could be added if needed, GOP aides said.
But Democratic staff argue the provisions are drafted in a way that renders the flexibility provision useless, since that only applies to money appropriated for fiscal 2024. In other words, it wouldn’t affect the money already set to flow on Oct. 1, which would be subject to the usual “apportionment” rules. In other words, the VA wouldn’t be able to “surge” the money into the first half of the fiscal year as needed — they’d have to spread it out over the 12-month period.
“There are zero dollars here” to plug the health care shortfall, House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro told the Rules panel Monday. The bill “gives VA authority to spend money provided by the CR faster … but there are zero dollars in the bill,” DeLauro, D-Conn., said. “So they’re going to spend zero dollars as fast as they can.”
Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., a top GOP appropriator who was sitting in for Cole during the Rules meeting, said Republicans moved quickly to pass the fiscal 2025 Military Construction-VA bill and that lawmakers weren’t even informed about the shortfall until after that measure passed.
Disaster aid to drones
Other problems with the base text identified by the White House and Democrats in various fact sheets, comments and the statement of administration policy — which said President Joe Biden would veto the House bill — include the following:
Disaster aid. The underlying bill would provide $10 billion in supplemental appropriations for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to natural disasters. It would also make the regular full-year $20 billion disaster relief fund appropriation available upfront on Oct. 1. The White House and Democrats argue that may be insufficient and that the bill would provide nothing for various other agencies that play a role in disaster relief, including Agriculture, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. Not counting FEMA money, the White House last October asked for $14.5 billion for those and other agencies and another $4 billion in June, mainly for the Baltimore bridge collapse.
Customer service for Social Security recipients. The administration asked for but did not receive language to provide the Social Security Administration with a $15.4 billion annualized rate for administrative operations to improve customer service amid rising workloads. Without that, the administration said the agency would have to reduce funding for information technology operations, adding that wait times for customers could increase.
IRS enforcement funding. The administration requested that a prior rescission in funding for IRS enforcement be removed, which would result in more funding for IRS enforcement. The CR did not end that rescission.
State Small Business Credit Initiative. The administration requested removal of a rescission of funds in the program, which provides capital and technical assistance to small businesses. The CR did not include it. Without the funding, the administration said the Treasury could not complete applications for the program and would need to curtail oversight and monitoring of the program.
Stolen food stamp benefits. The White House asked to extend authorization for a program enacted in 2022 under which the federal government will pay to reimburse recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for benefits that were stolen from them via card skimming and other ploys between October 2022 and September 2024. The administration asked for an extension of the program, which is run by the states, but the CR does not include it.
Protection from unmanned aircraft. The underlying bill omits an extension of a joint Justice Department-Homeland Security Department program that enables the agencies to track and take action against potential national security threats from drones and other unmanned aircraft. The program is set to expire Oct. 1 without an extension from Congress.
Paul M. Krawzak and Peter Cohn contributed to this report.
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