WASHINGTON — House Republican leadership unveiled its plan to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year over the weekend, teeing the deal up for a vote sometime next week just days before the shutdown deadline.
The continuing resolution published on Saturday extends current government funding levels through the end of September, relieving lawmakers from finalizing the 2025 fiscal year budget nearly halfway into the fiscal calendar. The funding levels come in below maximum caps laid out for the FY2025 budget but adheres to the levels agreed to in the FY2024 budget.
Overall, the 99-page legislation includes an $8 billion increase in defense spending while decreasing nondefense spending measures by roughly $13 billion. Included in that spending is roughly a $6 billion increase in veteran’s health care spending.
Those alterations leave an approximate total of $892.5 billion allocated toward defense spending and roughly $708 billion for nondefense spending.
Meanwhile, the CR does not include any additional spending for emergency aid, disaster relief, or community project funds that were included in the December CR.
The bill also includes a number of anomalies that were not included in the FY24 budget but were requested by the Trump administration to be included.
Anomalies are exceptions to current funding levels to address specific needs, offering guidance or flexibility to execute a full-year CR. Among the anomalies included is a provision for increased ICE funding to help the Trump administration fast-track deportations at the southern border as well as a $20 billion cut to IRS enforcement.
The yearlong CR comes after top appropriators failed to come to a topline agreement to complete the 12 appropriations bills before the Friday deadline, prompting President Donald Trump and other GOP leaders to push for a seven-month CR instead.
The bill text was drafted in close coordination with the Trump administration, according to House GOP leadership sources.
Democrats approached negotiations with demands to assure that Trump would allocate the funds as they are approved by Congress, decrying attempts by the new administration to freeze approved appropriations and block them from going toward federal agencies.
Republicans have balked at these demands, claiming they infringe upon Trump’s authority as president to spend government funds as he pleases.
As a result, leaders in both parties blamed the other for abandoning negotiations, prompting Republicans to move forward with a CR to carry out funding for the remainder of the fiscal year.
“It looked like (Democrats) were trying to engineer a shutdown of the government, which is terribly irresponsible. We’re not going to do that,” House Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox News on Friday. “We will be running a clean CR next week. And what that will do is allow us time, allow the White House, the administration, to continue the DOGE efforts finding all these extraordinary levels of savings and waste, fraud and abuse, we’ll be able to incorporate that into the budgeting for FY26, which will start almost immediately after we’re done next week.”
Democrats have staunchly opposed the proposed CR, with top House Democratic appropriator Rosa DeLauro calling it a “power grab for the White House.”
“I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution, which is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people,” DeLauro said in a statement shortly after bill text was released. “By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire.”
The bill is expected to be brought to the House floor for a vote as early as Tuesday, teeing it up for a vote in the Senate later next week. Federal funding is scheduled to lapse at midnight on Friday.
