House Republicans are moving forward with aggressive plans to raise and pass their 12 annual funding bills for fiscal year 2025 before the August recess, but some are scaling back expectations after intraparty divisions over spending have affected the process last year.
House Republicans took an important step this week by passing legislation out of committee to fund military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs for most of next year.
The bill marked the first of 12 party funding plans for fiscal year 2025 that Republicans hope to get out of committee and onto the floor by the end of July — when Congress prepares to go into a month-long August recess. .
The proposed timeline was detailed by GOP leadership to members earlier this week.
But despite optimism from parts of the conference, some are tempering expectations given the late start.
“If we don’t hit any roadblocks, this could work,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), chairman of the funding subcommittee that oversees dollars for the Department of Agriculture, said this week when asked about leadership’s proposed timeline. . . “But we usually find speed bumps.”
He added that he thinks the party’s goal of passing all 12 bills “will not be any easier” than last year — when intraparty divisions over spending and policy areas like abortion dominated public attention as the conference struggled. to unify behind their endowments. accounts.
“We’re saying we’re going to complete our 12 appropriations bills,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), another big-spending Cardinal, told The Hill, adding that he is “optimistic and excited” as the party ramps up its start. the annual financing process.
Fleischmann and other GOP members of the House Appropriations Committee said getting bills approved by the powerful panel that drafts the measures will be easier than passing them on the floor.
“The floor presents a very interesting dynamic,” he said. “You have to be able to pass a rule. If you can’t pass a rule, and you have to do it under suspension, you won’t get Democratic votes. Inherently, there were some challenges that we will have to overcome.”
Last year, the House GOP passed more than half of its partisan appropriations bills in the House, but five others were held up when hard-line conservatives tanked procedural votes amid internal disagreements over spending.
Republicans who were upset by these tactics say it ended up giving Democrats more influence, since the party needed minority help to pass rules that would get them to the substance of the bills being discussed.
Before introducing bills this time, Fleischmann also said he thinks the conference will need to “have an intra-family meeting with all three wards… and see where we are before we get to the floor” — after leadership suffered some embarrassing blows this year. past when they had to repeatedly withdraw votes on conference funding bills, largely due to intraparty divisions.
The House Appropriations Committee released just two bills this week, including legislation to fund the legislative branch. Democrats spoke out strongly against measures regarding so-called “poison pills” and the overall funding levels proposed by Republicans due to cuts in non-defense programs.
In comments to reporters Thursday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (DN.Y.) said the annual funding bills that have come from the Republican side so far have “zero chance of becoming law.” , accusing the party of pursuing cuts and “right wing policies” that will not pass the Democratic-led Senate.
He criticized the legislation for “taking away military women’s reproductive freedom, attacking the LGBTQ+ community” and “attempting to eliminate programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.” Such efforts will be “dead on arrival,” Jeffries said.
He also accused Republicans of trying to “shut down the government” ahead of the November presidential election — as lawmakers expect the outcome of the race to have a major impact on the appropriations process for fiscal year 2025.
Another key divergence to watch in the coming months is how both sides interpret a previous bipartisan agreement to lift the debt limit last year. The deal, which kept the nation out of what experts say could have been an unprecedented default, included a budget cap agreement that lawmakers are still wrestling with as they work out funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Republicans have sought to avoid what lawmakers described as a handshake deal between the White House and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that would increase spending on nondefense programs beyond sanctioned limits. in law.
Many Republicans say House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is not beholden to the McCarthy deal. Democrats say the handshake deal was key to securing support from their side of the aisle at the time and have accused Republicans of reneging on the overall agreement.
Senate Democrats have already sounded a warning on the issue, with Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Patty Murray (D-Wash.) recently saying that the upper chamber will “include all resources that House Republicans and the president have agreed to in the last year”.
At the same time, senators on both sides have signaled that more defense spending dollars are needed beyond the modest increase in the budget cap agreement — which could mean a wider gulf when the time comes for both chambers to bring their own accounts at the negotiating table. to produce final commitment measures for fiscal year 2025.
The Senate also has not yet decided on a maximum number for fiscal year 2025 spending, as Republicans in the upper chamber have also rejected calls for parity in defense and non-defense level increases.
“We have two big competitors, the Russians and the Chinese. We have the Iranians and we have their representatives. This is the most dangerous time since the fall of the Berlin Wall, and defense spending needs to reflect the needs of our country, which clearly argues against an arbitrary line that spends no more on defense than domestically.” Senate Republican Mitch. McConnell (Ky.) said earlier this month.
Congress still has more than four months on the calendar before the Sept. 30 deadline to pass legislation that would maintain government funding for the next fiscal year. But they are likely to miss that deadline and will have to pass a short-term funding measure to avoid a shutdown.
“This is something that has always been a challenge for Congress: getting these bills passed in full and on time,” Andrew Lautz, a tax policy analyst at the Bipartisan Policy Center, said in an interview.
He also noted that since the enactment of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974, there have only been a few instances in which lawmakers have had all 12 bills signed by the deadline.
“It’s not something that’s going to be resolved overnight or even over a six-month period or even over a year,” Lautz said Friday. “But I think they really need to have conversations over the next few years to assess what’s not working, because virtually any legislator and most of their constituents, the general public, can see that the process is not working right now. ”.
This story originally appeared on thehill.com read the full story
