House Republicans are laying out an ambitious timeline to pass all 12 annual government funding bills for fiscal year 2025 by the August recess, but some are tempering expectations around the goal as negotiators say that started late.
GOP leadership revealed the proposed plan at a conference meeting Wednesday, which aims to begin House votes on the party’s funding proposals in early June, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill.
Under the plan, the GOP-led House would begin considering the party’s proposed plans to fund military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs during the first week of June. The chamber would then consider plans to fund the Departments of Homeland Security, State and Defense at the end of the month.
GOP leaders say the House would consider legislation that would fund the legislative branch, financial services and general government, as well as the Departments of Agriculture (USDA), Transportation, Labor and Health and Human Services, and other offices, in the next month.
“If we don’t hit any roadblocks, this could work,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chairman of the funding subcommittee that oversees USDA dollars, said Wednesday when asked about the plan. “But we usually find speed bumps.”
He added that he doesn’t think the party’s goal of passing all 12 bills “will be any easier” than last year — when intraparty divisions over spending and policy areas like abortion dominated public attention while the conference struggled to unify behind its appropriations bills.
Negotiators said earlier this year that internal party disagreements over spending cost them leverage with Democrats when it came time to consult on both chambers’ drastically different funding bills for fiscal 2024.
House Republicans are again taking a similar approach to last year, rating their bills at lower levels than expected in the Democratic-led Senate, as Republicans push for cuts in global non-government-related funding. the defense.
House Democrats have also spoken out against GOP-backed policies they denounced as “poison pills” in some of the partisan funding legislation unveiled so far. That means Republicans will likely again have difficulty gaining support from across the aisle to pass the measures, putting more pressure on the party’s narrow majority in the House to get their bills passed.
“We will likely be heavily dependent on all-Republican votes in committee and then on the floor,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tennessee), another big-spending Cardinal, said Wednesday. “We noticed that. It’s just a sign of the times.”
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
