Congress starts countdown to another government shutdown

U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, R-La., became House Speaker on the promise he would restore transparency and accountability in government spending. Two years into his tenure, he has yet to break out of crisis-management mode when it comes to federal appropriations.

As the end of the government’s fiscal year approaches on Sept. 30, Congress once again finds itself up against the threat of a government shutdown—as it has for most of the past 40 years. Instead of debating and passing 12 individual appropriations bills before the deadline, Johnson has floated the idea of a short-term spending extension while lawmakers keep negotiating their spending priorities.

“We have our sleeves rolled up, and we want to do this in good faith. We just have to think responsibly about how to spend less money than we did last year,” Johnson told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. “It’s incumbent upon all of us to do it.”

Johnson has remained vague on the contents and potential duration of a spending extension, known as a continuing resolution or CR. Questions also remain about whether such a plan would carry the needed bipartisan support to succeed.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., is holding out hope that Republicans can still make a push towards passing individual spending bills.

“We’ve gotten roughly 70% of the spending across the floor,” said Cole, the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. “We’ll finish all the bills this week out of committee. The Senate is way behind us in terms of how much spending they’ve moved across the floor.”

Cole believes that advancing the individual bills is still a worthy cause—even if it does not happen until after the Oct. 1 deadline. A continuing resolution could keep the government open until those bills are passed

Though fiscal hawks have historically balked at these short-term spending extensions, some of Capitol Hill’s most conservative voices say they are open to the idea this time around.

“I don’t care as long as the result is no increase in spending from this fiscal year,” Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., told me when asked about his preference for continuing negotiations on the individual bills after a CR.

In the past, lawmakers from the House Freedom Caucus, which Harris chairs, have argued that CRs only prolong grossly inflated levels of government spending. Most recently, Congress used a CR to pay for its expenses in 2025, foregoing regular order at Trump’s request to focus its efforts on his domestic tax and border package.

Even with a deadline extension, lawmakers face the added challenge of securing bipartisan support in the Senate while maintaining a plan fiscal Republicans can support. In the Senate, legislation needs at least seven Democratic votes to advance if all Republicans back it.

“We don’t control all this ourselves. There has to be a Senate, and the president has to be willing to sign it. So, a lot of negotiations to do,” Cole said.

Democrats have also struggled to rally behind a spending strategy. Since coming back from the August recess, they haven’t articulated any demands about what they would want out of the process.

“A clear CR is one of the things that will be the subject of any four-corners negotiations. But there have been no four-corner negotiations,” U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said at a news conference last week, referring to the four Congressional party leaders. “That spending bill has to be both bipartisan and a product of negotiations.”

On Wednesday, Jeffries hinted that he wouldn’t support a CR that extends many of the spending cuts Republicans enacted through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and the One Big Beautiful Bill—although he didn’t specify which parts Democrats might want to revisit.

Democrats must walk a fine line between making policy demands and causing a government shutdown. Matthew Green, professor of political science at the Catholic University of America, told me that’s a tough calculus.

“If they play hardball, there’s a shutdown, and they might be blamed for it. If they negotiate, Republicans might later ignore their preferences via rescissions,” Green said, referring to a legislative tool Republicans could use to reel back funding after passing the spending Democrats want.

He noted that, to some degree, it boils down to questions of public perception.

“If Democrats can convince the public and the press that a shutdown isn’t their fault, they’ll have some leverage,” Green said.

Other Democrats seem more open to extending government spending with no strings attached.

“It depends on for how long. We don’t want to shut down the government,” said Rep. Steny Hoyer, D-Md., when asked about whether he would support a CR. “They’re going to have some sort of CR. The appropriations process is broken. It’s been broken for some time.”

In order to find some sort of consensus, Cole said lawmakers may attempt a conference—a kind of joint chamber negotiation to resolve differences in legislation. He didn’t give a clear idea of when that might take place.

Johnson, who has also touched on the idea, hasn’t proposed a timeline for when a conference could happen.

“[Not] until the Senate gives us an answer on whether or not we could do this, and to be fair, they have to think that process through themselves. So, we’re waiting on that,” Cole said.