Congress has one week to pass a spending bill that would avert a government shutdown, but lawmakers from both parties are not on the same page about how they’ll move forward.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said he aims to hold a vote on Tuesday in the House on a clean short-term bill that would fund the government at current levels through the end of September 2025, but the details of the proposal remain unclear.
Leaders said they are hoping to release the legislative text as soon as Friday, but that will likely slide into the weekend.
“I believe we’ll pass it along party lines,” Johnson told reporters on Thursday. “But I think every Democrat should vote for this [continuing resolution]. It is a fundamental responsibility we have to fund the government, and a clean CR with a few minor anomalies is not something they should vote against, so we’ll see what they do.”
President Donald Trump has lobbied House Republicans to support the measure, including hard-liners who typically vote against continuing resolutions.
“Conservatives will love this Bill, because it sets us up to cut Taxes and Spending in Reconciliation, all while effectively FREEZING Spending this year,” Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social on Wednesday.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson responds to a question from the news media as he walks to the House chamber to vote on censuring Democratic Representative from Texas Al Green in the US Capitol in Washington, Mar. 6, 2025.
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Johnson can only afford to lose one defection if all members are voting and present, meaning he’ll almost certainly need the help of Democrats to pass the measure.
Reps. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, have said they will vote no on a continuing resolution — presenting a challenge for Johnson, who is navigating a tight House majority.
Top House Democratic leaders explicitly said Friday in a letter to colleagues that they will oppose Johnson’s funding bill, arguing it could lead to cuts down the road to programs such as Medicaid.
“Republicans have decided to introduce 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,” they 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,” they added. “Medicaid is our redline.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune accompanied by Sens. Tom Cotton, Shelley Moore Capito, Sen. John Hoeven and Sen. James Lankford speaks to reporters at the U.S. Capitol, Feb. 25, 2025 in Washington.
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Any funding bill will also need to clear the Senate, where Democratic support will be critical. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., has already vowed to vote against the legislation, which means at least eight Democrats will be needed for any funding proposal to pass.
Democrats have so far kept their cards close as to what they’ll do if presented with such a bill. Many Senate Democrats say a six-month continuing resolution, like the one Johnson is proposing, would be a “disaster,” but they’ve also expressed little interest in shutting down the government.
Some Democrats prefer a plan that would see the passage of a shorter stopgap measure to allow completion of work on full-year appropriations bills.
But if Johnson passes his plan and the House flees Washington, there may be few alternative options remaining that don’t trigger at least a brief government shutdown.
Government funding is one of the few areas in which Democrats, who have been pushing for ways to challenge Elon Musk’s cuts via the Department of Government Efficiency, can assert their leverage. Whether or not they’ll ultimately use this bill to make that stand, and risk shutting the government down, remains to be seen.