Under pressure from Trump, House adopts big spending bill

Republicans in the House of Representatives banded together on Tuesday to clear the last of this year’s spending tasks off of their to-do list. The House passed an all-at-once funding package that bears little resemblance to the vision conservatives had for spending when they chose Mike Johnson of Louisiana as speaker in late 2023.

Tuesday’s resolution is the kind that Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., would normally oppose, but the White House asked him to set aside his reservations.

“I would never support this language, but I do trust Donald Trump,” Burlison said on Tuesday morning, confirming that he had spoken with the president. “That’s the only reason why I’m going to support it.”

The House voted 217-213 on Tuesday afternoon to extend the government’s spending levels through September 2025. It passed a continuing resolution (CR) that includes hundreds of tweaks to the government’s expenses while largely keeping funding steady. The measure, if signed into law, would avoid a government shutdown set to kick in on Friday at midnight and relieve Congress of its most pressing chore. Its passage marks the first time Republicans passed a spending resolution without relying on Democrats’ help since the GOP took control of the House in January 2023. Only one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted for the package.

The measure comes on the heels of another funding extension passed in December and is the third continuing resolution of the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2024.

The price tag of the continuing resolution is roughly $7 billion less than last year’s spending total, a modest adjustment to $6.7 trillion in overall expenses. The legislation makes a $40 million reduction to election security grants in a non–election year. It allocates an additional $360 million to the wildfire suppression operations reserve. It gives pay raises to the military and provides an additional $480 million for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The resolution does not include community projects, or “earmarks,” a common part of spending packages.

Fiscal conservatives have long abhorred continuing resolutions because they maintain government spending levels approved under previous Democratic leaders. In the leadup to Tuesday’s vote, many of those conservatives argued in favor of this resolution citing a need to settle this year’s spending debate and focus on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” that would tighten border security and cut taxes, among other priorities.

“I think this is a responsible step forward,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas. “Look, I’ve got a lot of people saying, ‘That’s not how we should do business.’ I would agree. We would like to have 12 appropriations bills. But we didn’t get it done. We should now focus on” the next fiscal year.

Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., another fiscal hawk, told WORLD on Monday he had never voted for a continuing budget resolution before, but he was considering his options.

“There are things about this that’s very different than your average CR, so I’m undecided,” Mills said. “But at this point I’m leaning in favor of certain areas of the bill.”

While Mills and other on-the-fence members eventually voted for the package, one Republican did not budge. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., cast the sole Republican no vote.

His opposition angered Trump, who met repeatedly with Republican holdouts.

“Thomas Massie of beautiful Kentucky is an automatic ‘NO’ vote on just about everything,” Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Tuesday morning. “HE SHOULD BE PRIMARIED.”

The White House also deployed Vice President J.D. Vance to the weekly Republican partywide meeting to boost support for the continuing resolution. According to lawmakers leaving the room, Vance fielded questions from the party on their concerns and helped bring uncertain members closer to yes.

The resolution now heads to the Senate, where its reception is uncertain. Several Republican members have expressed concern about adequate military funding. Even assuming complete Republican support, the measure will require at least seven Democratic votes to succeed. Without it, the government’s funding will run dry by midnight on Friday, kicking off a partial government shutdown.