March 8 (UPI) — House Republicans are proposing increases to national defense spending while reducing spending on domestic programs in a stopgap funding measure to avert a government shutdown.
The current temporary funding measure runs through Friday, and the federal government might shut down if the new funding proposal for the remainder of the 2025 fiscal year is not enacted.
The proposed funding resolution would increase defense spending by about $6 billion and reduce domestic spending by nearly $13 billion and does not include any partisan attachments, CNN reported.
The House breakdown is 218 Republicans, 214 Democrats and three vacancies.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said the House might debate and vote on the funding resolution on Tuesday and he expects it to be approved.
“I believe we’ll pass it along party lines, but I think every Democrat should vote for this [continuing resolution],” Johnson told media on Friday. “A clean CR with a few minor anomalies is not something they should vote against.”
President Donald Trump said he likes the proposed funding resolution.
“The House and Senate have put together … a very good funding bill,” Trump said Saturday in a Truth Social post. “All Republicans should vote … YES [sic] next week.”
Trump said, “great things are coming for America” and said his administration needs a “few months to get us through September so we can continue putting the country’s ‘financial house’ in order.”
Trump suggested House and Senate Democrats will “do anything they can to shut down our government” and said GOP lawmakers cannot allow that to happen.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., criticized House Republicans for drafting the funding measure with no input from Democrats.
“If Republicans decide to take this approach, as Speaker Johnson indicated, it’s his expectation that Republicans are going it alone,” Jeffries told media on Friday.
House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., denounced the proposed funding resolution as a “power grab” by Trump.
“I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution, which is a power grab for the White House and further allows unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people,” DeLauro told NBC News on Saturday.
“By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire,” DeLauro said.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said he prefers a temporary funding measure to enable negotiations to continue instead of funding the federal government for rest of the 2025 fiscal year, which runs through Sept. 30.