House Republicans eye vote on short-term funding plan slammed by Democrats

WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday he will bring a “clean” stopgap funding bill to a House vote next week to avert a government shutdown, as Democratic leaders blasted the emerging legislation by warning that it could cut money for health care, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits.

That leaders from the two parties haven’t agreed on a path to keep the government open yet raises the chances of a shutdown at the end of next Friday, when federal funding expires.

Johnson hasn’t yet unveiled the measure, known as a continuing resolution or CR, but has said it would keep the government’s lights on through the current fiscal year that ends Sept. 30.

Bipartisan talks have hit a wall and Johnson is seeking to pass the bill with only Republican votes. But he has a razor-thin 218-214 majority, and Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has already said he will vote against the stopgap bill. That means Johnson cannot afford another GOP defection.

The speaker is also grappling with some of the near-term spending changes requested by the White House — like higher immigration enforcement funding and cuts to the IRS — though it’s not clear which provisions will make it into the bill. And Democrats want guardrails to prevent President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk from unilaterally slashing agencies and spending directed by Congress.

Johnson said the bill would hit the floor “early next week, probably on Tuesday.” He added Friday on Fox News that once it passes the Republican-controlled House, “we’ll see if there are grown up Democrats in the Senate.”

In the Senate, the bill would require at least seven Democrats to pass the 60-vote threshold. If Congress can’t send a stopgap bill to the president’s desk by March 14, the government would shut down less than two months into Trump’s second term.

Congress had passed a short-term funding bill last December, but it only funded the government through March 14.

What’s unclear is if any vulnerable House Democrats, facing tough reelections bids in 2026, will break with their leadership and support Johnson’s eventual bill, which is backed by Trump. If enough House Democrats vote for it, it could pressure a handful of Senate Democrats to sign on as well.

For now, the two parties appear far apart just seven days before funding expires.

As Johnson appeared on Fox News, the top three House Democratic leaders — Hakeem Jeffries, Katherine Clark and Pete Aguilar — sent a letter to their rank-and-file members accusing Republicans of bringing forward a “partisan continuing resolution that threatens to cut funding for healthcare, nutritional assistance and veterans benefits through the end of the current fiscal year.”

“That is not acceptable,” the leaders wrote.

“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.”

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, quickly shot back at the letter from Democrats: “House Democrats admitted they wanted a government shutdown, and now they’re following through.” 

Meanwhile, the top four House and Senate appropriators are working on a parallel track and said they are nearing a deal on top-line spending numbers for the 12 appropriation bills for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30.

It’s not clear at the moment what will become of those negotiations given that there are less than seven months left in the fiscal year and the legislative calendar is being crowded out by other items.

“It’s imminent,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Wednesday of the potential deal. “Let’s get the process started. We all want to make sure that money that is appropriated goes to where it’s been intended to go. I want to get to full-year appropriations bills.”

She also reiterated Democratic opposition to Johnson’s continuing resolution.

“The first thing to do, in my view, is to make sure that there isn’t a full-year CR,” she said. “And I’m not sure the other side has the votes, but that’s up to them.”

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., the chair of the House Appropriations Committee, said one possibility is to pass Johnson’s stopgap bill to buy negotiators more time, continue negotiating a longer-term deal, and later pass individual appropriations bills.

“The speaker is very insistent that we go all the way” with a CR, “so I agree with that decision. “Obviously, that doesn’t mean we can’t keep negotiating,” Cole told reporters in the Capitol on Wednesday.

He ruled out the possibility of passing a weeklong or weekslong continuing resolution that would keep pressure on Congress to get a broader funding deal that would serve as a framework for the 12 bills.

“I want to do all 12; I’m crystal clear about that. But we can’t have a situation where we have a government shutdown threatened every two weeks. We have other things to do. Obviously, we have a reconciliation bill to do,” Cole continued.

“I mean, the speaker’s told us, ‘Keep negotiating.’ We prefer a deal,” he said.