White House readies for funding fight as lawmakers return to Washington
Haisten Willis
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The White House is drawing its battle lines ahead of a funding fight with House Republicans as Congress begins to return from a weekslong recess.
President Joe Biden inked a deal with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) earlier this year to set next year’s funding levels and avert a default on the country’s debts. Yet the demands of hard-line conservatives, and an insistence on supplemental spending by the president and Democrats, have Washington on a collision course with days left to avoid a government shutdown.
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The posturing has already begun on both sides, with the White House issuing a Tuesday memo that framed the funding debate around the need to combat fentanyl trafficking.
“With House Republicans on the verge of breaking with the Senate GOP and turning their back on the funding commitment they made to the American people, they need to remember that lives are at stake in the government funding debate,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates wrote.
Bates cited an $800 million proposal from Biden to fight fentanyl trafficking and said the alternative was to go along with firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who wants to see an impeachment inquiry into the president, among other measures, in order to vote for government funding.
Congress and the Biden administration have 17 session days ahead of a possible government shutdown on Sept. 30. Eyes will be especially trained on the House, where a thin GOP majority will be forced to navigate the demands of its right flank. The Senate resumed business on Tuesday following the August recess, but the House will not be back until next week.
The House Freedom Caucus has issued requests including increased border security funding, less Justice Department spending, and “anti-woke” reforms at the Department of Defense in order to keep the government open. McCarthy will need most of the conference’s votes to get a spending proposal passed.
But Biden will need to sign off as well and has issued demands of his own.
The White House is asking for $16 billion in disaster relief following the Hawaii wildfires and a hurricane in Florida, money that is likely to receive bipartisan support. But the Biden administration has also tied that to $24 billion in funding to support Ukraine, legislation Florida Republicans have asked to be separated into two different measures. The emergency supplemental is being put forward as part of a continuing resolution that would buy lawmakers more time to pass their annual budget.
Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was questioned several times about the likelihood of a government shutdown even while Congress was away, saying it was important to keep the government functioning.
“This is something that Congress can do,” she said in late August. “They can prevent a government shutdown. They need to prevent a government shutdown. What I just listed out are critical, critical programs that Americans across the country — American families across the country certainly need.”
That includes an adjustment for supplemental nutrition programs that the White House says should be protected in the case of a continuing resolution.
“Without this adjustment, states would be forced to implement waiting lists, causing women and children to go hungry and pushing vulnerable families into poverty,” Jean-Pierre said.
House Republicans are focusing not just on where money is spent but where it isn’t. Some are asking for spending cuts of up to $200 billion to match fiscal 2022 levels, and many are increasingly cautious about how much money goes to Ukraine.
And not all Republicans are opposed to the idea of a shutdown. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) has said “we shouldn’t fear” a shutdown if it’s necessary to force spending cuts.
Immigration could be another sticking point, with both sides wanting more money but sometimes for different priorities. Democrats have asked Biden for federal money to help feed and clothe immigrants who have crossed the border since he took office. Republicans want to see money spent to continue building a wall at the southern border and on other measures to reduce the number of people crossing.
Some of the talking points over the next month will resemble those made in the debt ceiling battle. That fight was resolved with about a week to go, yet it still resulted in a credit downgrade for the U.S. from Fitch Ratings.
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Biden himself hasn’t made many remarks about the funding battle but was asked about it after an Aug. 31 appearance at the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters.
“[A shutdown] would be a serious, serious problem,” he said. “I’m hoping that there’s greater maturity to prevent that from happening than some think.”