House Republicans grappling with path ahead on government funding
By Lauren Fox and Haley Talbot, CNN
(CNN) — House Republicans are still scrambling to find a path forward with less than two months until the government runs out of funding, as the right wing of the GOP conference is still insisting it needs to see more spending cuts in order to support a series of bills to avert a government shutdown.
The disagreements mean lawmakers will undoubtedly need to pass a short-term spending measure to give them more time to negotiate, but a so-called continuing resolution – or CR – will only kick the inevitable fight down the right and could still risk enraging House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s right flank.
House Republicans are expected to huddle Monday evening at 6 p.m. ET to discuss spending and other issues including investigations, a chance to check in during a six-week recess not scheduled to end until mid-September.
The impending spending showdown will come just as lawmakers are also contending with a potential impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden and as the House and Senate have a series of divisions in the annual defense policy bill they need to iron out.
“There are a lot of things colliding,” one House Republican member told CNN Friday.
Over the last two weeks, leadership has been trying to gauge in informal conversations the potential for passing some more individual spending bills on the House floor when Republicans return in September. Republicans in the House passed one spending bill before recess, but still have 11 more to go. An agriculture spending bill they’d hoped to put on the floor was scraped after the House Freedom Caucus wanted another $8 billion in spending cuts. The Senate also still has to pass all 12 of their bills (although all 12 of theirs passed with bipartisan support out of committee). As one Republican put this week finding any more bills that can pass on the floor is still an extremely heavy lift.
Asked how many they predicted could get through a narrow 4-vote House majority, the member replied “zero.”
Multiple appropriators who have spoken to CNN in the last several days say they have grown tired of the demands of the House Freedom Caucus, warning that the goalposts simply have kept moving. The tension was exasperated this week when Rep. Chip Roy of Texas released a letter laying out a series of demands he wanted to see in exchange for supporting the funding bill for the Department of Homeland Security. The letter, which was signed by other Republicans, called for Texas to be reimbursed billions for support on the southern border and for DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to be fired.
As one House Republican put it, everyone else in the conference picks an issue to stand for, they pick an entire platform.
Even passing a short-term spending bill – a so-called CR – could be a heavy lift. McCarthy would need to turn to Democratic votes and may even need them to pass the procedural rule vote.
“God bless our leadership to hammer through that,” said Rep. Mike Waltz, a Florida Republican. “I don’t like CRs.”
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