House’s stop-gap spending bill faces tough sell in Senate

Rep. Tom Cole doesn’t often raise his voice. As a mild-mannered Oklahoma Republican with a penchant for policy details, he usually leaves the drawing of political fault lines to more vocal colleagues.

But on Friday morning, Cole, chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, pointed a finger at his Democratic counterparts for their opposition to a continuing resolution, a funding package also known as a CR, meant to keep the government from shutting down.

“This is what my friends on the other side of the aisle asked for. A clean bill—no partisan riders, no tricks,” Cole said. “You asked for a clean CR, you got a clean CR. Now we have people dropping things out of the blue that were never intended to be in a CR to try to create a sense of crisis and drama.”

Facing a potential Oct. 1 government shutdown, Republicans and Democrats in Washington find themselves at odds over a CR that would keep the government’s funding afloat through Nov. 21. The House of Representatives narrowly passed the package Friday in a 217-212 vote, largely along party lines. Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, was the sole Democrat to support the package.

Where Republicans have proposed a clean extension of current spending levels, Democrats hope to force a conversation on COVID-era tax credits under the Affordable Care Act that are set to expire this year. The impasse, which will likely come to a head in the Senate, sets the stage for a government shutdown that could come with a high political price tag.

If it comes to that, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson thinks it’s Democrats who will foot the bill.

“[This was] a common sense, nonpartisan effort to keep the government open,” Johnson said. “Unfortunately, we only had one Democrat come along with us and that’s shameful. If they choose to vote against this clean CR, they will be choosing to shut the government down and they will owe the consequences.”

Republicans for years have urged a return to the 12-bill process that, under the Budget Control Act of 1974, would normally fund the government. But amid partisan divides and deadlines, Congress has used all-at-once omnibus bills for much of the past 40 years. Fiscal conservatives believe these massive spending bills—often thousands of pages long—have obscured the government’s expenses and contributed to ever-climbing costs. In past years, they’ve also been used to advance leadership priorities apart from the input of the rest of the chamber.

This year, Johnson has promised a return to regular order—and has maintained that Republicans can still get the job done. But up against the Oct. 1 deadline, Johnson argues he needs just a little more time. Republicans have passed all 12 of their spending bills out of committee, and in theory, Congress could still approve them for fiscal year 2026. Three have passed out of the House and are pending negotiations in the Senate.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said the deadline Republicans have given themselves in CR’s short-term funding extension shows they’re serious about continuing their work.

“We put it on [Nov.] 21 because it keeps the pressure on us to do something,” Simpson said. “If you had made it Dec. 25 or Jan. 31, it wouldn’t have gotten done until Dec. 25 or Jan. 31. Our hope is that we will get these three bills done and that we will get three more done by Nov. 21. I’m certain there will be another short-term CR.”

Part of the slow-moving nature of appropriations is due to the need for bipartisan collaboration.

Republicans presently hold 53 seats in the Senate, so they need the support of at least seven Democrats to clear the 60-vote threshold needed to break a filibuster. That threshold applies to the current spending extension too.

With the spending legislation passed out of the House, Senate Democrats have signaled they aren’t going to support Friday’s CR without including some provision on COVID-era tax credits. Temporary measures, passed in 2021 to aid Americans during the COVID-19 pandemic, expanded premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act to include earners making over 400% of the poverty line. But with that expansion set to expire in December, Democrats worry the abrupt reversal could leave some earners high and dry.

Ahead of Friday’s vote, House Democrats invited Claire Sachs, founder of TPAC Consulting, to explain the fallout she would experience.

“Without them, rising healthcare costs would force many small entrepreneurs, including me, to close their doors,” Sachs said during a news briefing. “Altogether my healthcare costs without coverage would be about $30,000. Before the Affordable Care Act passed, I only worked for companies that could afford my health insurance. … Those credits are the only reason I can afford my business and my health.”

With the tax credits set to expire, Sachs said she’s uncertain about the future of her company.

Republican leaders in the House have said they hope to evaluate the tax credits later in the year, maintaining they deserve a conversation separate from spending. Already, Republicans have voiced varying stances on the credits.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said she would support some sort of off-ramp for the policy, noting that their expansion over the 400% threshold was always supposed to be temporary. Malliotakis sits on the House Ways and Means Committee, the body that sets the parameters for the country’s tax legislation and deals with other spending matters.

“We need to address it in a way that phases it out over a longer period of time while addressing the core question of why insurance costs are so high,” Malliotakis told me on Tuesday. “Look, you hear Democrats and Republicans talking about this, right? This is something that is bipartisan. I think that’s the balanced solution.”

Malliotakis had suggested including her idea as a part of Friday’s stopgap spending bill. She ended up supporting the package despite its exclusion.

When asked if he believed Democrats had changed their demands about spending at the 11th hour by including demands for the tax credits, Cole declined to elaborate on the bill negotiations between lawmakers.

“I’m not going to get into that,” Cole told me. “They know I was asked to give them a clean CR and that’s what they got. And then you had Democratic leadership deciding to drop other things into it. There’s no mystery here.”

Democrats for their part recognized they probably could have raised their tax credit concerns sooner, but blasted Republicans for waiting to address the issue.

“This is not a new issue,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said. “We’ve been bringing this up to Republicans for quite some time. So, the idea that this is picked out of the sky is just not accurate. Should we have been doing more press conferences two months ago? We were still hoping to negotiate a deal we all could support.”

“The idea that people don’t get thrown off their healthcare is somehow a deal-breaker is unconscionable,” McGovern added.

For now, Republicans in the House are set to leave town, leaving the Senate with the choice of either passing their short-term government extension bill or risking a government shutdown. The Senate, also scheduled to be out of town next week, may return to session ahead of time, according to sources familiar with the developing plans.