CNN
–
House Republicans hope to vote Tuesday on a suspension bill aimed at providing funding to the federal government through September 30th and preventing closures from Friday.
Chamber of Commerce GOP leaders are competing to lock down support among members of the package, so they can send it to the Senate this week.
Overall, the measure would increase defence spending by $6 billion and reduce defence spending by $13 billion compared to 2024.
Republicans have described the law as a so-called “clean” continuous solution without partisan action, but some details remain vague.
Meanwhile, House and Senate Democrats have denounced the law and said they will give President Donald Trump and Elon Musk more room to redirect funds to make them deem appropriate.
If Congress does not extend federal funds for government agencies, non-essential government businesses will be suspended from Friday until lawmakers act.
About 900,000 federal workers could be employed without wages, with over 1.4 million people still need to continue working, according to Rachel Snyderman, managing director of economic policy at the Bipartisan Policy Center.
(She noted that these estimates did not include layoffs or departures that took place in the early weeks of the Trump administration.)
According to the GOP-led House Approval Committee, the bill fully funds core federal services and will maintain operations without increasing spending.
“There are no poison pills or unrelated riders – the bill is simple. It expands the funding and certainty of the country,” Oklahoma Chairman Tom Cole said in a statement.
However, the measures include requests from the Trump administration, including an additional $485 million for immigration and customs enforcement to promote deportation.
A $13 billion decline ($13 billion in savings) that Republicans touted as $13 billion in savings comes from a one-off initiative funded in 2024 by lawmakers known as Year Mark, according to a spokesman for the House Approximately Expenditure Committee. This measure will not affect the money directed towards these projects last year, but will not repeat funding for the same project. The continuous resolution does not include earmarks, the spokesman said.
The law also fully funds veterans’ healthcare services and benefits and strengthens their investments in defense, the committee advertised in a press release. It noted that the bill includes the largest wage increases for the lower troops for over 40 years. The National Defense Authorization Act, signed by former President Joe Biden in December, allowed a 14.5% increase in salary in 2025.
According to the bill’s GOP summary, StopGap measures will also include supporting federal wild firefighters, raising wages and providing premium pay for people responding to fires. Additionally, air traffic control system funding will increase by $753 million above the previous year’s level.
Funds for nutritional assistance for mothers, infants and children in the WIC program have increased by more than $500 million to total $7.6 billion. This was a demand from the Trump administration, the committee stressed. The bill will also increase funding for product supplemental food programs and food safety inspection services to support low-income seniors and review meat and poultry processing plants.
Democrats are having trouble with the GOP’s move to fund the government throughout the end of the fiscal year, claiming that the package does not provide specific funding directives for many of the programs and priorities laid out in the negotiated full-year spending bill.
“This will create slash funds to help the Trump administration restructure its spending priorities, eliminate long-standing programs, and eliminate winners and losers, according to a fact sheet released by Washington Sen. Patty Murray, a ranking Democrat on the Senate Approvals Committee.
Without these directives, Rep. Murray and Rosa Delauro, ranking members of the House Approximately Expenditure Committee, will make it difficult to challenge the Trump administration’s actions in court on separate fact sheets.
Lawmakers highlighted various spending cuts included in the ongoing resolution, including slices of $185 million for the defense nuclear non-proliferation program and cutting $1.4 billion from the Army Corps of Engineers’ construction funds used in the project to mitigate the impact of hurricanes and floods.
Additionally, the law will reduce support for the rural broadband community connect program by $30 million, reduce nearly $800 million from building veteran facilities, eliminate up to $40 million in election security grant funding, improve land, cut $30 million in conservation efforts, and cut $30 million.
Additionally, the package does not provide additional funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency Disaster Relief Fund. This will require more money by the end of the fiscal year, Murray and Delauro said.
According to Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, representing Washington, D.C., the bill also limits spending in the District of Columbia to the 2024 level.
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Buffer and other district officials warned at a press conference Monday that if the bill is passed, the district must cut $1.1 billion in its approved budget. These cuts would strip funds from public safety, education and economic growth priorities, Bowser said.
Separately, the package extends community health center funding and pandemic-era permits that will expand telehealth use at Medicare through September 30th.
CNN’s Sara Davis contributed to this report.
