Republicans are close to finalizing a short-term spending deal to avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month, with appropriators and GOP leadership hoping to return to holding an “old-school” formal conference between the House and Senate to advance the remaining appropriations bills.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-OK) said on Tuesday that appropriations leaders are close to a deal on a three-month continuing resolution until November, paired with a three-bill “minibus” approved by the Senate.
“We’re having good discussions with our Democratic colleagues in the House and Senate, and obviously with Senator [Susan] Collins, so we’re trying to put together a three-bill package and a CR to get us past Sept. 30 and keep negotiating,” Cole said, leaving the House GOP’s weekly meeting.
Many issues factor into Republicans’ uphill battle to pass 12 appropriations bills, or a CR, by Sept. 30. In the last few fiscal years, it’s proven to be difficult to get all 12 across the finish line, often requiring stopgap resolutions or packages to pass the funding bills.
Appropriators in both chambers are looking to pass the three bills the Senate passed in a minibus Aug. 1, combining a two-bill package to fund the Veterans Affairs and Agriculture departments with a third bill to fund the Legislative Branch.
The goal is to send at least some full-year bills to President Donald Trump’s desk to fund parts of the government for the full fiscal 2026 while leaving the remaining bills under a short-term spending deal to allow more time for cross-chamber, inter-party negotiations.
Cole said he would prefer to hold a “formal” conference with the Senate on the minibus and CR.
“A formal one, everyone’s involved,” Cole said. “You get a much better reflection. If you do an informal (conference), basically it’s the subcommittee chairman negotiating, the big four sorting it out. I would prefer much more member involvement, and I know the speaker would.”
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) echoed Cole during a press conference on Tuesday, noting he and other members of the leadership team are “big advocates” for a formal conference.
“What we’re really advocating for is an actual, old-school conference, the way this is supposed to work, between the House and Senate,” Johnson said Tuesday.
“If we’re able to get that conference going, then you would have three bills there, which means you’d have a broad cross section of the conference there…have a good representation of the country,” he said. “And I think a good, vigorous debate between the House and Senate, and that is how the process is supposed to work.”
Another issue plaguing Republicans is the upcoming recess week for Rosh Hashanah. With only 21 days until the government funding deadline, and a full week of recess lasting from Sept. 22 to Sept. 26, Congress is on a time crunch to avoid a government shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said he has no plans to cancel the recess, and House GOP leaders have not indicated that that option is on the table.
“It’s kind of the tyranny of the urgent right now, but we’re doing noms and defense authorization, and then we’re going to try and figure out how to structure the CR around all that, but yeah, a lot to do between now and the end of the month,” Thune said.
But some appropriators are growing frustrated with the number of recess weeks that are stalling the committee from doing its job. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID), who chairs the Interior appropriations subcommittee, told the Washington Examiner on Monday that the House needs to be in session to get the bills across the finish line.
“If we’re going to get an appropriations process done, the way people always say they want to do it, all year long we need to be in session,” Simpson said.
He added that a “number of things” have contributed to the delay in passing the remaining nine appropriations bills, but that “absolutely” recess weeks are a significant factor.
“When we were going to be gone the week of July 4th, and we did the ‘big, beautiful bill’ right up until the 4th. Then they gave us the next week off. Well, we had two full committee markups,” Simpson said. And that type of stuff makes it really hard. We’re not holding nearly the number of committee hearings we have to have.”
Cole agreed that the holiday “really complicates things” and noted that the committee is “juggling a lot of balls here.” He said he’d prefer to have a CR on the floor next week, but acknowledged that may not be possible.
Often, votes on the spending deals are done at the last minute, leading to late nights for lawmakers as fiscal hawks engage in negotiations with leadership. Eleventh-hour votes on contentious legislation have become commonplace, as votes are left open for hours on end as leadership works to sway holdouts.
“I think you get it after that, the break makes it very, very difficult, and I think it’s hard to ask members to come up and give them something on the 29th day and ask them to vote on it then or the next day,” Cole said.
Johnson and other Republicans have blamed the impending shutdown on Democrats, arguing they are taking the path of “maximum resistance” and seem to “enjoy this.”
But Democratic leaders are blasting Republicans for engaging in a “partisan” spending process, as well as pointing to the Trump administration’s decision to use rescissions packages, which axed funds appropriated by Congress.
“If you don’t stand up to Donald Trump, if you don’t say what we passed, what we appropriate, you guys implement it — until they’re willing to do that, it’s really hard to trust them,” Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar (D-CA) said Tuesday. “And we’ve seen how weak the House Republicans are in terms of standing up to this administration.”
The “four corners,” referring to the top Republican and Democrat appropriators on the House and Senate committees, met on Monday with other top appropriators to discuss a path forward.
House Appropriations ranking member Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) said everyone is “very cognizant” of the Sept. 30 deadline and they are moving as “quickly as we can.”
“We think we can move on the three bills, as we all have said, all of us, and there’s a real willingness to negotiate,” DeLauro said, leaving the four corners meeting.
On Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget sent Congress its “anomalies,” which can essentially add or subtract money from the CR. The anomalies, which were delayed, are based on a full-year CR until Jan. 31 — an option that many fiscal hawks and the White House favor.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) said the end of January was a suggested date by the administration, but “nothing’s finalized.” When asked by reporters later on Tuesday, Cole agreed that he considered the Jan. 31 date “flexible.”
Thune said Monday he wanted the White House to minimize anomalies to keep the CR as “clean as possible.”
“If you want to make it about trying to get an extension so we actually have time to try and run a normal appropriations process and get some of the bills passed under regular order, then I think you want to have it as clean as possible,” the Senate majority leader said.
Getting fiscal hawks on board with a short-term CR will also likely be a tall order for Johnson. Given his razor-thin, three-seat majority, it would only take a handful of conservatives pushing for a full-year CR to sink the legislation.
But most, if not all, appropriators are against a full-year CR, noting that a short-term deal urges the committee to move faster.
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“You’ve got to keep the pressure on us,” Simpson said. “And even if we end up having to do another one in the middle of November, keep the pressure on us.”
“I don’t think a full CR is good,” he added. “As Republicans, I have a hard time explaining why I’d want Biden’s last budget for the third year in a row.”
David Sivak and Lauren Green contributed to this report.