President Donald Trump over the weekend praised the continuing resolution put forth by House Republicans and urged its passing. Far right conservatives in the past have railed against the practice of continuing to fund government through a “CR” without debating and passing individual spending bills.
The government faces a deadline of midnight Friday to fund its programs or enter into a partial shutdown.
The government hasn’t funded operations for a full year without a CR since at least 2012, possibly before. The proposed CR would fund government through September.
“The House and Senate have put together, under the circumstances, a very good funding bill (CR)! All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” Trump wrote on Truth Social over the weekend.
Trump’s support will likely matter to some within the Senate and House, but some other hardline fiscal conservatives have already indicated a lack of support.
“Despite DOGE’s findings of looney left-wing USAID programs, the Republican spending bill continues to fund the very foreign aid @elonmusk proposes to cut! The bill continues spending at the inflated pandemic levels and will add $2T to the debt this year. Count me as a … no,” wrote Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), with colorful language before his “no.”
Representative Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) reposted his fellow Kentuckian and pledge a no vote also.
Several administration voices made the media rounds over the weekend encouraging the CR’s passage.
“The key here is that we’re avoiding a government shutdown because … a shutdown is a distraction from getting our important work done which President Trump has said is securing our southern border, protecting our national security interests and reigning in spending,” Representative Stephanie Bice (R-Oklahoma), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, said on Washington Watch Monday.
Democrats cheering for distraction
A distraction from Trump’s governance blitzkrieg is what Democrats would like. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said his party, which most often stands united, will not support the CR.
“The Musk-[Mike] Johnson proposal is not serious. It’s laughable. Extreme MAGA Republicans are driving us to a government shutdown,” he said.
Bice told show host Tony Perkins that while it’s true the CR funds government at current spending levels, there are also some cuts – roughly $7 billion worth – that are getting overlooked.
“We're not funding the community project funds that we funded in '24. So, you remove those dollars, and it actually is a small savings overall, which is really what we're after,” she said. “We want to make sure that Democrats recognize that we can't shut government down because they don't like some of the sort of policies that are being put forward.”
The Republican plan is to fund government through September then immediately begin Fiscal Year 2026 appropriations on Oct. 1.
In the meantime, Republicans are hopeful to sidestep the filibuster option for Senate Democrats.
The budget reconciliation process begins when the President submits a budget to Congress early in the calendar year. In response, each chamber of Congress starts a parallel budget process. Each budget committee proposes a budget resolution setting spending targets for the upcoming fiscal year.
Both chambers of Congress must pass identical budget resolutions containing reconciliation instructions. Eventually the two budgets are consolidated, and each chamber considers its respective omnibus bills under its rules of debate. That process negates the filibuster option in the Senate.
“Budget reconciliation is a way for us to put together a package with an impact on spending that only requires a simple majority in the Senate and the House,” Bice explained.
The budget reconciliation process would lead to extending the Trump tax cuts passed in 2017 through the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and would also codify cuts of wasteful spending programs that have been revealed through Musk and DOGE, the GOP lawmaker said.
Codifying Trump tax cuts
“There are a ton of provisions in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that will ensure that small businesses continue to thrive," said Bice. "So, our focus is going to be on getting that particular bill across the finish line. It's a big bill.
“We're talking about $4.5 trillion in tax cuts, and my colleagues and I want to see offsets to that. We want to see the reigning in of spending. What we plan to do is use those cuts, those offsets, as part of the reconciliation package so we can pay for essentially the tax cuts that we want to continue,” Bice added.
The national debt is $36.2 trillion with an estimated $1.75 trillion added annually, Bice noted. “This is an unsustainable path. The President has been very clear that we’ve got to figure out how to reign in bureaucracy. These are priorities for the President,” she said.
For now, though, President Trump appears to be asking for time. “There are great things coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order,” he wrote.
