House Votes to Extend Biden-Era Spending, but Almost All Dems Oppose

The House of Representatives passed a seven-week continuing resolution Friday by a 217-212 vote that would fund the government into November and avert a government shutdown if it is approved by the Senate.

Two Republicans voted against the CR: Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Victoria Spartz of Indiana. Only one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, voted in favor.

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., facing an end-of-September deadline to fund the government, proposed the CR Tuesday, presenting it as a way to buy time for the appropriations process.

Johnson framed it as a “clean” CR, meaning without significant alterations from previous spending policy.

“We have made substantial progress in government funding. This year, the House Appropriations Committee has passed all 12 [spending] bills out of committee,” Johnson told reporters. “We need responsible options here to keep the government open while all this work continues.”

A government shutdown could lead to federal employees not being paid, as well as interruptions in government services.

The proposal to continue the same funding levels that were in place under former President Joe Biden came with some grumbling among Republicans.

Massie signaled his opposition from the outset but predicted it would pass after negotiations.

“There will be some squabbles, and some people will trade, do some horse trading, but they’ll trade their cows for magic beans,” Massie told reporters Thursday.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a fiscal hawk in the House Freedom Caucus, explained to reporters Thursday that, although he dislikes CRs, he would support the resolution.

“I don’t like CRs. It impedes the process,” he said. “But with everything going on with what the president’s doing with pocket rescissions, what he’s doing with everything in the country… It’s the right thing to do at the right time. And if the Democrats want to shut it down, let them shut it down.”

He nevertheless suggested that the CR should be an on-ramp toward regular order in the funding process.

“The CR’s got to lead to regular appropriations in a timely manner, and that begins to cut the deficit from where it is now. $37 trillion [in debt] is not sustainable,” he told The Daily Signal.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., signaled his opposition to the CR, even though it remains mostly consistent with the Democrat-approved spending of the Biden administration.

He argued it was “not clean” because it does not undo Medicaid reforms in the Republican budget reconciliation bill in July, as Democrats have demanded.

“The Republican, partisan spending bill that they introduced is not clean. It’s an attack on the health care of the American people that is continuing, and it’s a dirty piece of legislation.”

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