House Republicans unveil short-term spending bill

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., unveiled a short-term spending bill on Tuesday afternoon, aiming to prevent some government agencies from closing their doors Oct. 1.

The U.S. government's fiscal year ends on Sept. 30. The bill, known as a continuing resolution, would extend the government’s current funding through November 21, 2025, giving Congress just under two additional months to pass spending legislation for 2026.

“Appropriators are actively engaged in ongoing, bipartisan conversations to fund the government in [fiscal year] 2026,” Johnson said in a press conference on Tuesday morning. “We have to allow time to do that …. We need responsible options here to keep the government open while all this work continues.”

Republicans need at least seven Democrats’ votes in the Senate to advance their spending legislation. It’s unclear whether the GOP will find the needed support to avoid a shutdown. In the House, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., has said repeatedly he won’t support any legislation that extends spending cuts made by the Trump administration—at least without receiving some concession in return.

What’s the context? Johnson and other fiscal conservatives have long argued against the use of short-term government spending bills, arguing they extend bloated budgets and take Congress away from regular order. Under the budget process laid out by the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974, Congress would normally pass 12 individual spending bills. Instead, lawmakers have funded the government through omnibus spending packages for much of the past 40 years.

Johnson has said he plans to press for regular order later with the extra time provided by the stopgap bill. On Tuesday morning, he noted that the House and Senate are working to reconcile differences in three of the 12 spending bills. All 12 of the bills have moved out of committee in the House.

Dig deeper: How conservatives approach government funding has been a yearslong saga. The return to regular order was a key component of how U.S. House Speaker Johnson came to hold the gavel in the first place. Read my reporting on how conservatives are thinking about government spending this time around.