White House Asks Congress To Pass Short-Term Funding Measure, Avoid Government Shutdown

The Biden administration is urging Congress to act ‘prudently’ and pass a short-term funding measure next month to give budget writers more time to negotiate. But some Republicans are already signaling their opposition, raising real concerns about a government shutdown one month from now.

The Senate returns to work next Tuesday, but Speaker of the House McCarthy doesn’t have members of the lower chamber going back in session until the following week. Either way, with 11 appropriations bills to get across the floor in the House and all 12 still in the Senate, there seems very little chance members can pass a budget before the end of the fiscal year September 30.

The White House's Office of Management and Budget acknowledged as much Thursday morning, urging Congress to pass a stopgap funding measure in the interim to give budget negotiators more time to work out a broader spending plan.

“Although the crucial work continues to reach a bipartisan, bicameral agreement on fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills, it is clear that a short-term continuing resolution (CR) will be needed next month," said an OMB spokesperson.

But, as routine as continuing resolutions have become in Washington in recent years, a growing number of Republicans, led by the hardline Freedom Caucus, are pushing back on the idea of a CR, which their members see as avoiding the tough decisions.

"We have to have people that are willing to put their personal self-interest, their political interest, aside and put the country's best interest ahead," Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2) said at a June news conference. Rep. Brecheen is Oklahoma's lone member of the Freedom Caucus.

In a release last week, the Freedom Caucus made it clear, with regard to a possible CR, they "will oppose any spending measure that fails to: Include the House-passed Secure the Border Act of 2023….Address the unprecedented weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI…[and] End the Left’s cancerous woke policies at the Pentagon."

These, however, are all non-starters for Democrats, who still control the Senate. So, passing a CR that maintains current funding levels and does not include the items listed in the Freedom Caucus document, is likely to again test Speaker McCarthy's leadership and his ability to appease the far-right members of the conference.

It's not clear how far McCarthy would go to try and avoid a partial shutdown of the federal government, but Freedom Caucus made clear at a recent news conference that the threat of a shutdown isn't going to cause them to change their demands.

"What would happen," asked Virginia Representative Bob Good (R-VA), "if Republicans for once stared down the Democrats and were the ones who refused to cave and betray the American people and the trust they put in us when they gave us the majority? So, we don't fear a government shutdown."

The last time there was a government shutdown was December 2018. It was the longest in U.S. history, lasting more than month and impacting about 800,000 federal workers.