House Republicans say they’ll confer with Trump on shutdown avoidance plans

House Republicans are planning to strategize with President-elect Trump on their path forward to funding the government past the current Dec. 20 deadline, leaders of the conference said on Tuesday. 

After retaking the White House and Senate in last week’s elections and appearing likely to maintain control of the House, Republicans are looking to maximize their leverage in setting spending levels for the remainder of fiscal 2025. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and his deputies have floated various proposals, including passing another stopgap that would keep agencies funded at their current levels into March or approving full-year funding bills that set agency spending through the end of the fiscal year in September. 

For now, top Republicans plan to ask Trump for his preference and decide how to proceed. Johnson said on Tuesday he has already spoken briefly to Trump about the government funding, but planned to go to the Trump-owned Mar-a-Lago in Florida on Thursday to discuss the matter in more depth. Trump is also planning to speak to House Republicans at the Capitol on Wednesday ahead of his Oval Office meeting with President Biden. 

Johnson said he would be at Trump’s home and resort “all weekend to hammer out plans.” 

In September, as lawmakers were negotiating how to avoid a shutdown at the end of that month, Trump encouraged Republicans to shutter federal agencies unless Congress addressed his unsubstantiated claims of widespread voting from non-citizens. Ultimately, Johnson agreed to a short-term continuing resolution through Dec. 20 and the measure easily cleared both chambers. 

Senate Democrats, who will lose their majority in January, had hoped after the election focus would turn to approving full-year appropriations bills. The House has passed five of the 12 required annual spending bills, though it has done so in party-line votes and at spending levels below what Republicans and the White House previously agreed to as part of a two-year budget deal. The Senate has passed 11 of its 12 bills using higher funding totals in overwhelmingly bipartisan votes at the committee level, though none have been approved on the floor.

Prior to the election, the House and Senate remained far divided on the path forward for full-year appropriations. 

To date, Republican appropriators have set aside parts of the two-year budget deal President Biden struck with House Republicans last year in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. Instead, they have stuck only to the spending levels detailed in writing in the Fiscal Responsibility Act. In addition to that law, Biden and then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed to other mechanisms that would ultimately allow both defense and non-defense discretionary spending to increase by 1% in fiscal 2025.

If Congress does try to wrap up fiscal 2025 funding before the end of the current session, it will be facing a tight timeline. Senate Democrats have suggested they will use as much of the limited remaining floor time to confirm judges and other Biden nominees that would outlast the end of his presidency, while Johnson has been adamant he will not put an omnibus package of all the annual spending bills up for a single vote. 

Congress opted to punt funding into 2017 after Trump’s first victory in 2016, which led to a series of delays as the president pushed lawmakers to fund his proposed wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Agencies did not receive their full funding until May of that year. 

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who will surrender his post leading his caucus in January, encouraged his colleagues to take swift action to avoid a shutdown. 

"As I've said before, there is never a political advantage to be gained from allowing core government functions to go dark," McConnell said on the Senate floor Tuesday. "The 119th Congress and the 47th president must not inherit a federal government in the middle of a funding crisis."