House Democratic leaders have been aggressively opposing the Republican short-term spending bill, denouncing the plan as a threat to military readiness and warning that GOP leaders are on the cusp of a government shutdown.
Leaving a closed-door meeting of Democratic caucus members in the basement of the Capitol, party leaders said the Republican six-month budget bill scheduled for a vote in the House on Wednesday is unlikely to be considered in the Democratic-controlled Senate, where even some Republicans oppose the bill.
“Republicans are trying to force a government shutdown that will hurt ordinary Americans because they want to impose President Trump's Project 2025 agenda on the American people. This is what they're doing,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters.
Jeffries did not say that House Democrats would unanimously oppose the spending bill, but he stressed that even if the bill passes the House, it is unlikely to pass the Senate, and urged Republican leaders to start working on a bill that can become law.
“This bill is not going anywhere,” he said.
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the No. 2 Democrat in the House for decades, also predicted failure was imminent.
“That's a bad idea,” he said. “It won't work. It's a waste of time.”
Rep. Katherine Clark (R-Mass.), the Democratic leader, said party leaders were in the early stages of urging Democrats to oppose the bill. A handful of moderate Democrats backed a Republican bill aimed at blocking foreign nationals from voting earlier this year, known as the SAVE Act, and Republican leaders have attached it to a larger spending bill, raising questions about whether moderate Democrats will defy leadership and support the bill.
“We are opposed to this bill. We're just beginning the process,” Clark said. “But I think the Republican conference is once again trying to introduce a bill that their own conference doesn't support. That's what happens when you introduce bills that cut our national security and defense budget, cut veterans benefits, make it harder for seniors to get Social Security.”
The spending debate is just the latest challenge facing House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, as he tries to balance delicate efforts to avert a government shutdown this month, expand the Republican majority in November's elections and remain the GOP's top leader next year in the face of conservatives unhappy with his leadership style.
The Republican Continuing Resolution (CR) seeks to achieve this by extending government funding until March 28, a six-month period demanded by conservatives, and by attaching proposals on election integrity that are also supported by the right.
But the bill is facing stiff opposition in the House of Representatives, after several conservative lawmakers on Monday voiced opposition to the bill, calling it too expensive. Those critics have been joined by defense hawks, who say six months is too long for the Pentagon to go without a budget increase.
This view was reinforced by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, who wrote to lawmakers over the weekend warning that maintaining the defense budget at current fiscal 2024 levels rather than increasing it in the 2025 budget “ties our hands while expecting us to be agile and accelerate progress.”
Republican opponents have suggested the CR would be voted down in Congress on Wednesday even if a minority of Democrats supported it, but Johnson is forging ahead and adamant he has no plans to switch to Plan B on Tuesday.
“That's what I'm determined to do,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill. “We're not looking at other options or other avenues. We think that's the right thing to do.”
It is unclear how this debate will ultimately be resolved.
With Democrats controlling both the White House and the Senate, a government shutdown can only be avoided with bipartisan support. But Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Republicans haven't reached out to her seeking a compromise, a process that often involves so-called “Four Corners” negotiations that involve bipartisan leaders from both chambers.
“This is one corner we're going to make this decision around,” DeLauro said.
