This month the U.S. is facing yet another potential government shutdown and House Republicans Saturday released a 100-page stopgap spending bill that President Donald Trump urged his party to vote “yes” on.
“All Republicans should vote (Please!) YES next week,” he said in a Saturday Truth Social post. “Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order.”
With GOP majorities in the House and the Senate, why is the president asking his party to back a bill that they created?
Well, the GOP majorities are slim. According NBC News, the legislation might fail next Tuesday, when lawmakers are expected to vote on it. NPR noted that it is possible that at least two Republicans in the House might indeed vote against it: Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.).
“I’ll vote against a clean CR that funds everything in 2025 at 2024 levels because: 1. @SpeakerJohnson isn’t following the provision in law that would have cut everything by 1% if the CR extended past April. 2. We should not fund the waste, fraud, and abuse that Doge has found. 3. These are supposed to be 12 separate bills. 4. We were told that the CR in December that got us to March would allow us to prioritize Trump’s agenda this March using the checkbook,” he said in an X post this week, before the proposed bill was released.
However, a House Republican leader aide said of the bill: “It is quite literally as clean as a CR as you can draft,” according to Axios.
Although Burchett said that he would be open to voting yes on the legislation, he has been an opponent of similar stopgap bills in the past, NPR said. He said this week that he wants to see what is in the proposal before deciding.
While this situation – Congress split along party lines about a spending bill – is familiar to Americans, this one marks a shift from the past for years, when Democrats were trying to push forward bills and Republicans were withholding votes. Previously, former President Joe Biden signed the bill that pushed a potential government shutdown to March, though Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s version of that bill was changed in part to social media comments from Trump ally Elon Musk, now leader of the controversial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
This time around, it doesn’t look like Republicans can’t count on Democrats to support their bill, and Axios said that passing a spending bill with only GOP votes hasn’t happened in recent memory.
“I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution, which is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), per an X post shared by the House Appropriations Democrats Saturday.
“Democrats just don’t get the irony,” said Johnson in his own Saturday X post. “They love to remind the American people of the perils of a government shutdown. BUT, they’re opposing a clean CR that would keep the government open.”
According to Axios, the short-term funding bill only deals with discretionary spending and would not affect spending levels for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, citing to GOP leadership aides.
“But in the GOP’s separate budget reconciliation package, lawmakers have instructed the Energy and Commerce Committee to cut some $880 billion, which will be very difficult to do if they don't touch Medicaid,” the outlet added.
In the Senate, Republicans will need tor try even harder to get bipartisan support. NPR noted that they will need at least seven Democratic Senators to vote “yes” on the legislation for it to pass and reach Trump’s desk before the March 14 deadline.
“Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen,” the president said Saturday. “We have to remain UNITED — NO DISSENT — Fight for another day when the timing is right.”