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Republicans want to force Democrats to once again take an up-or-down vote on shutting down the government. First, they have a tactical dispute to settle by September.
Led by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, many Senate Republicans are pushing for bipartisan spending deals with Democrats. Yet the White House and congressional conservatives prefer a year-long continuing resolution that would freeze spending at current levels.
It’s an impasse with huge implications: The only reason the GOP was able to jam Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on government funding in March was because of full party unity around a CR.
This time around, Thune told Semafor, his “defense hawks hate that idea” and some Senate Republicans are panning a freeze as locking in “Biden’s budget.”
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Conservatives are reeling from the deficit-busting price tag of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill and are trying to find their footing for the fall.
The White House is planning for more party-line rescissions cuts — and not particularly interested in the progress Thune’s chamber showed before August recess, as it passed a three-bill spending package, according to multiple people familiar with the matter.
“I think we ought to start planning for a full year CR. A funding freeze in a setting of 2.7% inflation actually is a real cut in the size of the scope of government,” said Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., who chairs the conservative Freedom Caucus.
Yet House and Senate appropriators hate CRs because the simple extension approach leaves no room to update spending for Trump’s priorities — and their own. And Thune has shown significant deference to Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, who wants to forge as many bipartisan, bicameral spending pacts as she can before Sept. 30.
After that point, the rest of the government could be funded by a shorter-term stopgap while Collins and her House and Senate counterparts finish off the year’s spending decisions and turn to next year.
A year-long continuing resolution, as the White House is quietly pushing, means “you’re locking in sort of Biden-era spending levels,” Thune told Semafor. “If you fail to do appropriations bills, you don’t get the benefit of having the Republican imprint on a lot of these bills.”
Thune said he thought Trump’s advisers could be swayed to embrace the Senate’s approach as long as it kept spending levels low and they kept making progress, but a person with direct knowledge of the situation said that’s unlikely.
Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought has publicly criticized bipartisan spending discussions outright, frustrating appropriators in both parties.
Yet even some non-appropriators said that giving up now would undercut Republicans’ strategy.
“A CR is a continuation of Biden’s budget. Like, why would you want to do it? That’s literally insane,” said Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio. “Let’s get the appropriations bills passed; those are our priorities. Adjust the dollars and get to spend it on Trump’s priorities, not Biden’s.”
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Collins told us last month that she’d like to see further Trump administration cuts get requested through the regular spending process.
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