Washington — House Republicans unveiled a stopgap measure to keep the government funded through September on Saturday, setting up a vote next week on the measure that would avert a government shutdown. But with just a week before the deadline, its path to passage remains unclear.
The 99-page continuing resolution, or CR, bill will moderately increase defense spending and provide the U.S. Department of Defense with some flexibility. Meanwhile, non-defense spending will decrease but there will be an additional $6 billion for veterans’ health, according to House Republican leadership staff.
The CR does not include any additional spending, including no emergency funding or disaster designation and no community project funding.
The bill will go to the House Rules Committee on Monday and a floor vote is expected Tuesday.
Facing a March 14 deadline to fund the government, House Republicans have been moving forward with a plan to keep spending at current levels for the next six months. But Democrats, who have stepped in to help keep the lights on several times in recent years, aren’t eager to come to the GOP’s aid this time around. Instead, Johnson has been looking to secure the support of a number of consistent Republican holdouts — a group of hardliners who oppose stopgap measures to fund the government on principle.
Some of the hardliners met with President Trump at the White House on Wednesday. After the meeting, the president wrote on Truth Social that “Conservatives will love this Bill,” encouraging his party to get it done.
Rep. Chip Roy, a Texas Republican who often opposes continuing resolutions, told reporters Thursday that the president believes a continuing resolution is necessary to “stop Democrats from playing games.”
“You’re telling me as a conservative, you’re going to freeze spending for six months, hold the defense hawks at bay, get everybody in a room and keep getting DOGE transparency and demonstrating all the waste, fraud and abuse that we can then use to go inform FY ’26,” Roy said. “I’m good with that.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told reporters Thursday that he expects the resolution will have the votes for passage, outlining that he doesn’t anticipate additional no votes among his conference beside Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Johnson said “there’s a couple of people who have remaining questions, as always,” adding that members want to see the bill text, after which they’ll have time to answer their questions.
As for Democrats, Johnson said he’s hopeful they will vote in favor of the stopgap measure, saying “the responsible thing is to keep the government funded.”
“If it’s a clean CR with minimal anomalies that are necessary, I don’t know how they have an argument to vote against it,” Johnson added.
A floor vote on the stopgap measure is expected as soon as Tuesday. Meanwhile, House Democratic leaders said Friday that they are opposed to the “partisan” stopgap measure because it “threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year.”
“That is not acceptable,” they wrote in a letter to the Democratic caucus on Friday. “House Democrats would enthusiastically support a bill that protects Social Security, Medicare, veterans health and Medicaid, but Republicans have chosen to put them on the chopping block to pay for billionaire tax cuts. We cannot back a measure that rips away life-sustaining healthcare and retirement benefits from everyday Americans as part of the Republican scheme to pay for massive tax cuts for their wealthy donors like Elon Musk. Medicaid is our redline.”
House Democrats plan to meet next week ahead of the expected vote.
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