U.S. House Republicans set up Tuesday vote to avert government shutdown

The U.S. Capitol is seen at dusk in this aerial photograph taken above Washington, D.C., U.S., on Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2019. Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg

The Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives set up a Tuesday vote on legislation that would keep the government funded and avert a partial shutdown, as Washington is rocked by President Donald Trump’s rapid moves to slash federal agencies.

The House Rules Committee advanced the bill on Monday evening to the full chamber, clearing the way for what will likely be a close vote on Tuesday to extend government funding past midnight Friday, when it is due to expire.

The package also would have to pass the Senate before Trump can sign it into law.

House Democratic leadership was urging its rank-and-file to oppose the measure. Meanwhile, Trump was contacting some fence-sitting Republican lawmakers to garner their support, Fox News reported, in a sign that House Speaker Mike Johnson may not have nailed down enough votes for passage as of Monday.

Hardline members of the fractious 218-214 House Republican majority -- who over the past year repeatedly bucked Speaker Johnson’s plans -- have signaled support for the bill, which would keep the government funded at its current levels through September 30, when the current fiscal year ends.

Supporters argued that the House must advance it to move on to Trump’s agenda of sweeping tax cuts and stepped-up spending on immigration enforcement and the military. Trump has voiced support for the bill.

If all House Democrats oppose the bill, Johnson will have to make sure all Republicans fall in line behind the legislation to ensure its passage.

“It is not something we could ever support,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters, saying his party would not be “complicit” in what he said were cuts to social safety net programs embedded in the 99-page bill.

Multiple Senate Democrats -- who could block the bill thanks to the chamber’s 60-vote filibuster rule but have long bemoaned government shutdowns as needless chaos -- have said they would support it rather than further destabilize the government when Trump adviser Elon Musk has ousted more than 100,000 federal workers.

The bill covers discretionary spending, functions like law enforcement and air traffic control, and represents about a quarter of the roughly US$6.75 trillion federal budget. That also includes spending for the Social Security retirement program and more than $1 trillion per year on interest payments on the government’s growing $36 trillion debt.

It would increase defense spending by about $6 billion while decreasing non-defense spending by about $13 billion, according to House Republican leadership aides. It would also maintain a freeze on $20 billion for the Internal Revenue Service included in a December stopgap bill.

Lawmakers will face a more serious deadline later this year when they must address their self-imposed debt ceiling or risk a disastrous default that would rock the world economy.

The last government shutdown stretched over 35 days in late 2018 and early 2019, during Trump’s first term in office. Repeated brinkmanship by lawmakers over government shutdowns and the debt ceiling has already hurt U.S. creditworthiness.

Two of the three major global credit ratings agencies have stripped the U.S. federal government of its once top-tier rating.

Hardliners get in line

Last year, members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus repeatedly refused to vote on government funding bills.

Trump’s support has tipped the balance, and several of their number emerged from a White House meeting last week saying they were inclined to support the bill.

“I am firmly 100% in his corner,” Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, the group’s leader, told reporters.

Similarly, Representative Victoria Spartz, an Indiana conservative who nearly blocked the House last month from passing its budget blueprint for the Trump tax agenda, signaled her support.

“I don’t think we have time to do anything else. I’m being realistic,” she told Reuters.

Johnson will need his hardliners' support as Jeffries also has said the Republican funding bill would violate a bipartisan deal on spending enacted in 2023. Some leading Senate Democrats have argued its structure would give Trump added authorities to move funds around at will.

Senate ready

If the bill clears the House, it will move to the Senate where Republicans hold a 53-47 majority and support of at least seven Democrats will be needed to pass it.

Moderate Democratic U.S. Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said he would not reject the measure, adding, “That’s chaos. I’ll never vote for chaos.”

Similarly, liberal Democratic U.S. Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon signaled support, saying, “Shutdowns are a bad idea. I’m not a shutdown guy.”

Not all were supportive. Moderate U.S. Senator Elissa Slotkin, who delivered her party’s rebuttal to Trump’s speech to Congress last week, said Sunday she saw little reason to support the bill when the administration’s cost-cutting campaign is ignoring prior law passed by Congress.

(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Bo Erickson; additional reporting by Andy Sullivan and Gram Slattery; Editing by Scott Malone, Bill Berkrot, Cynthia Osterman and Michael Perry)