Congressional Republicans seek to unite around bill to avert government shutdown

WASHINGTON — The Republican-controlled U.S. Congress aimed to move ahead this week to keep the government funded and avert a partial shutdown beginning on Saturday, as Washington is rocked by President Donald Trump’s rapid moves to slash federal agencies.

Hardline members of the fractious 218-214 House Republican majority — who over the past year repeatedly bucked Speaker Mike 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.

Johnson has said he aims for passage on Tuesday, with supporters arguing 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 on Monday, 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 $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.

Last year, members of the hardline conservative House Freedom Caucus repeatedly refused to vote on government funding bills, particularly the short-term measures known as continuing resolutions that Congress means to take up this week.

Trump’s support for the measure 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.

The group’s chair, Representative Andy Harris of Maryland, said doing so amounted to support for Trump.

“I am firmly 100% in his corner,” Harris 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.