But the GOP versions of those bills largely abandon a deal congressional Republicans struck with President Biden last year on spending caps, and they contain dozens of combative social policy provisions, often called “riders” because they ride along in unrelated legislation.
Together, those will probably doom the bills’ chances in the Democratic-controlled Senate, setting Congress on a course to approve a stopgap funding law, called a continuing resolution, or CR, to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown. That would punt substantive government funding discussions until after November’s elections.
House Appropriations Committee Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said Tuesday that he hoped a final government funding package could come together between November and the start of the new year.
GET CAUGHT UP
Stories to keep you informed
But the legislation draws a line that Republicans hope to hold in larger spending negotiations, especially after a right-wing bloc of the conference rebelled against this year’s funding bills, complaining that the measures bent to Democratic priorities.
“These aren’t the final products,” Cole said. “These are negotiating positions.”
House Democrats lamented that a partisan approach to government funding bills was counterproductive.
“None of these bills, none of them, will be signed into law the way they are written now. We all know that,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said in a hearing Tuesday.
The House this week is set to vote on bills to fund the Defense, Homeland Security and State departments, legislation worth approximately $950 billion. The vast majority of that money — $833 billion — will fund the Defense Department, an $8 billion increase from the current fiscal year.
Last week, the House passed a $378 billion funding measure for military construction and the Department of Veterans Affairs, which included a 9 percent bump in discretionary spending.
But to pay for that increase, Cole proposed deep cuts across the rest of the federal government. The State Department under the House legislation would see an 11 percent cut, after a 6 percent cut last year. The measure to fund the Labor and Health and Human Services departments, major Democratic priorities, would see an 11 percent cut as well.
The Homeland Security bill, the most contentious of the funding proposals, takes direct aim at the Biden administration’s immigration policies. It would require the White House to spend $600 million to erect a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border and would claw back $650 million in shelter services for undocumented migrants awaiting the outcome of their legal proceedings.
The measure may not be aggressive enough for some Republicans, who are considering sinking the legislation if it does not include harsh Trump-era immigration restrictions. The GOP leadership hopes to use the funding bills to force Democrats into tough votes on immigration ahead of the election.
“It’s the border, it’s the border, it’s the border,” Rep. Mark Amodei (Nev.), the lead Republican negotiation on the Homeland Security bill, said Wednesday.
Other policy provisions tucked in each bill would force votes on additional controversial topics. The Defense bill would prohibit funding for military service members to travel for reproductive health care and for activities that “bring discredit upon the military, such as a drag queen story hour for children or the use of drag queens as military recruiters.”
The State Department legislation would ban funding for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the principal aid group in Gaza. Some Democrats have sought to send more U.S. funding to the agency. Israel has accused UNRWA employees of participating in the Oct. 7 terrorist attack that launched the now eight-month-old war.
It would also prohibit the use of federal funds to assist civilians from Gaza from settling in the United States.
“The priorities in this bill are really simple and straightforward. If you are a friend or an ally of the United States, this bill supports you. But if you are an adversary, or are cozying up to our adversaries, then frankly, you’re just not going to like this bill,” Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (Fla.), the bill’s lead Republican negotiator, said at a hearing Tuesday.
In forthcoming House GOP funding bills, appropriators have signaled plans to defund parts of the FBI in retaliation for investigations into former president Donald Trump’s handling of classified documents.
Biden made his 2023 spending agreement with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that May, but a GOP revolt over the deal led to McCarthy’s ouster months later. Mindful of that, Cole and the new House speaker, Mike Johnson (R-La.), opted to jettison part of the arrangement that called for $69 billion in spending that would not count against the annual budget caps Biden and McCarthy had signed off on. Republicans have taken to calling that spending a “side deal.”
But Cole on Tuesday left open the possibility that the money could return during negotiations with the Senate and White House.
“I think clearly from a Democratic standpoint, they’re going to come back into play. And I think the Senate wants more money, not less, so I would expect those things to all come up,” Cole said.
Cutting out that money, Democrats worry, would leave a gaping hole in federal resources.
“You are talking about massive cuts to basic public services and protections that would not fly with the American people, including most Republican voters,” said Michael Linden, a senior fellow at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth and a former Biden budget official, warning of “deep cuts” to education, public safety and science funding. “That’s what you have to do. There’s not $70 billion worth of unpopular, unnecessary, unsupported programs in the federal government.”
