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Congressional Republicans are facing an uphill battle over the next two months to deliver on their promises to cut spending in the next fiscal year – while avoiding a partial government shutdown if no deal is struck.
“When’s the last time we got 12 appropriations bills actually done, and completed in a couple of weeks? It’s almost impossible to do,” Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., told Fox News Digital last week.
Passing 12 individual appropriations bills, each funding separate aspects of the federal government, has been Republicans’ goal each time the Sept. 30 fiscal year (FY) deadline nears.
But that has not happened since 1996 — FY1997 — and the partisan environment in Washington has only gotten more polarized since. Recent Republican-backed legislation has all but sidelined the once-powerful appropriations committees in both chambers.
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Meanwhile, House Republicans are more broadly eager to adhere to the Trump administration’s request to cut $163 billion from non-defense government spending than their Senate counterparts – which could result in a standoff between the two chambers.
“It’s looking like it’s going to be higher than what the president’s budget is. And that, I’m not a fan of,” Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., a member of the House Appropriations Committee, told Fox News Digital last week.
Another committee Republican, Rep. Riley Moore, R-W.Va., said, “I’m really proud of the work the committee has done so far. I do feel like we’re gonna be able to get these bills done. The question is, what’s the Senate going to do?”
Further compounding difficulties between the two sides of the U.S. Capitol is the 60-vote filibuster threshold that most bills in the Senate must ram through.
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That means that any spending bills have to be bipartisan, but after Senate Republicans advanced President Donald Trump’s $9 billion rescissions package, Senate Democrats have warned that they won’t play ball.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said that he would like to go ahead with a regular appropriations process, but that Senate Democrats “have signaled that they don’t want one.”
“The Democrats have been very clear,” he said. “They are already conferencing the idea of a government shutdown — I don’t have any idea, no idea how that is helpful for them or to anyone.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., previously warned that if Republicans were successful in passing the rescissions package — after icing out Democrats during the budget reconciliation process — that there could be trouble down the road in generating enough bipartisan support to pass spending bills, nonetheless avert a partial government shutdown.
Sen. John Hoeven, chair of the Senate Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee, told Fox News Digital that if Democrats planned to block everything, then “what would you expect?”
“By working with us, that’s how they actually will get some of their priorities,” the North Dakota Republican said. “But when they’re going to just block us, then why should their priorities be included?”
A House Appropriations Committee member who spoke with Fox News Digital on the condition of anonymity indicated that Republican lawmakers are beginning to accept the possibility of a short-term continuing resolution (CR), a stopgap measure extending the previous fiscal year’s funding levels in order to keep the government open.
“You could see a situation where you’re in a short-term CR, and we’ll try to negotiate topline numbers and all that,” that House lawmaker said.
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It’s a situation that House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., didn’t rule out to reporters early last week – while agreeing with Senate Republicans’ concerns about Democrats failing to work across the aisle.
“I’m always worried about a shutdown, because I think the Democrats have a very hard time bargaining with Donald Trump. I mean, that’s why we ended up in a CR,” Cole said, referring to the last round of government funding talks that resulted in a CR from March through the end of FY2025.
“We offered them a much better deal than a CR, and they couldn’t do it. So I hope this time they can, but the temperature on the other side is very high, and Democratic voters are punishing their own members for cooperating on things like keeping the government open.”
That could create issue with members of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, however, who have fiercely pushed back against CRs or “omnibus” spending bills in the past – though no such standoffs have led to a shutdown in recent years.
Both House and Senate Republicans are dealing with razor-thin margins of just three votes.
House Republicans scored an important victory last week in passing their $832 billion defense funding bill. That, along with the bill funding military construction and Veterans’ Affairs, make up more than half of the discretionary budget requested by the White House earlier this year.
But they’re not expected to hold House-wide votes on any of the remaining 10 bills before early September, when Congress returns from August recess.
Senate Republicans are also gearing up to consider their first spending bill, one for military construction and the VA, on Tuesday that will likely end up being a test of how the appropriations process, and likely government funding extension, will play out in the coming months.
Sen. Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said after the rescissions package passed that she wanted to see the panel return to form, and in doing so, keeping the bipartisan spirit of appropriations alive.
“It is unfortunate that many members of this body have voted to make that a whole lot harder,” the Washington state Democrat said.
One senior House GOP lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital ultimately downplayed concerns of a shutdown, however.
“The factors of the Senate wanting more money than the House, Democrats wanting more money than Republicans – those have been in place for a generation. And most of the time, shutdowns don’t happen,” that lawmaker said.
“It would seem to me that although the Democrats are big mad about Elon and Trump, and reconciliation, at some point, that temperature’s going to fade and people are going to realize that a shutdown doesn’t really serve our national interests.”
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