Congress’ top appropriators are finalizing a bipartisan agreement on overall government funding totals as House Republican leaders forge ahead with a different plan President Donald Trump has endorsed to avoid a shutdown.
The impending deal on funding totals comes far too late to save Congress from having to clear a funding patch next week to avert a government shutdown set to begin just after midnight on March 14. Whether that continuing resolution lasts just a few weeks — or spans through September, as Trump prefers — remains an open question.
“It’s imminent,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the House’s top Democratic appropriator, told reporters Wednesday night about a funding agreement. “Let’s get the process started. Let’s move.”
Yet despite the tentative agreement among appropriators for funding “toplines,” House Republican leaders still aim to hold a vote next week on a Trump-backed plan for a “full-year” continuing resolution, or CR, that keeps the military and non-defense agencies operating on “flat” funding levels through Sept. 30 — the end of the current fiscal year.
“We are running the full-year CR. Period,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) told reporters Wednesday evening.
Speaker Mike Johnson conveyed the same message. “I’m counting on the full-year CR. I think that’s the only plan that works,” the speaker said in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
Trying to whip support for that plan, Trump met at the White House on Wednesday afternoon with a group of House Republicans, including members of the House Freedom Caucus.
If House GOP leaders can’t rally enough Republican votes to pass that plan next week amid widespread opposition among Democrats, Johnson will face pressure to bring a shorter patch to the floor. A continuing resolution that funds the government for a month or two could keep alive the possibility of clearing bipartisan funding bills that update federal spending levels.
The “full-year” proposal faces opposition from top Democrats, who want higher funding levels and argue that the plan would give Trump and Elon Musk more power to dismantle federal agencies through the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency.
“The first thing to do, in my view, is to make sure that there isn’t a full-year CR,” DeLauro said. “And I’m not sure the other side has the votes, but that’s up to them.”
The so-called “topline” agreement among appropriators would be the first step toward clearing final government funding bills, setting overall totals for the military and non-defense programs. But several more weeks of negotiations, and Trump’s blessing, would be needed to finalize and pass bills that update funding levels for federal agencies.
Nicholas Wu and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
