Republicans are showing early resistance to President Trump’s request for a short-term funding bill, which would kick this month’s government shutdown deadline into next year.
The Trump administration’s latest ask of Congress called for a stopgap funding bill, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), to keep the lights on through January. But some Republicans worry the move would stick federal agencies with another year of flat funding.
“I just think that we get into January, get into the new year, that it’s less likely we’ll do any appropriation bills and we’ll have a yearlong CR,” Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), a GOP spending cardinal, told The Hill on Tuesday.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who also serves on the Senate Appropriations Committee, said Tuesday that while he recognizes Oct. 1 “is not a doable date” for appropriators to finish their annual funding work for fiscal 2026, he’s not “prepared to support a CR that’s a long-term extension.”
GOP appropriators in both chambers have been pushing for a stopgap to last through sometime in November, at the earliest, to keep pressure on lawmakers to finish their annual funding bills.
There’s also been bipartisan interest in using the coming deadline as pressure for lawmakers to hash out a bicameral funding deal that could allow Congress to approve three of its 12 annual funding bills by the end of the month and knocking out the rest with the stopgap.
“I don’t want to take the heat off of the Senate or the House and just getting our work done,” Rounds said. “And it’s a terrible thing to do to the Department of Defense to have continuing resolutions, which don’t allow us to actually move forward with some very critical new projects.”
Talking to reporters Tuesday, House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.), who has pitched a stopgap through part of November, was noncommittal to reporters shortly after the White House’s request for a Jan. 31 deadline when pressed about the timeline Republicans might land on for a CR.
“I think that sentiment is probably still leaning toward something shorter, and that’s pretty much on both sides, and it’s basically with the idea to keep a sense of urgency,” he said, adding he thinks there’s some flexibility on the timeline.
“We’re not going to try to do something that Democrats are opposed to. We’re not trying to jam them here. We’re trying to work together with them,” he also said.
But there is growing appetite in the party’s right flank for another yearlong stopgap, similar to the outcome of Congress’s last shutdown fight in March, in a bid to reduce government spending, and they have expressed skepticism about ongoing efforts to pass fiscal 2026 funding bills in the coming weeks.
“If we want to do a very short CR into the middle of October to see if we can negotiate that minibus, that’s fine,” Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a senior appropriator, said ahead of the White House’s request Tuesday. “But beyond that, I think you got to go into next year.”
He also expressed doubts about efforts for a bicameral deal on the full-year fiscal 2026 funding plan for the Department of Agriculture (USDA) — the bill crafted by the Appropriations subcommittee he chairs.
“If the purpose is to see if we can negotiate a successful minibus, but again, I’m skeptical about whether that can be done on the [agricultural funding bill], in terms of the level funding issue,” he said.
The bill is one of the three full-year funding plans that Republicans have been looking to pass as part of a minibus some are hopeful will ride alongside a stopgap this month. The two bills include annual funding plans for the Department of Veterans Affairs and the legislative branch operations.
This week, top Republicans pushed for what they’ve described as a “formal conference” to negotiate the funding bills. Cole also told reporters such a move would allow for more involvement from members.
“A formal one, everybody’s involved,” he said. “You get a much better reflection.”
“If you do an informal one, basically, it’s the subcommittee chairmen negotiating, the Big Four, sorting it out,” he said, referring to the four top funding negotiators in the House and Senate on both sides of the aisle. “I would prefer much more member involvement, and I know the Speaker would.”
Congress is facing a tight crunch on legislative time. Cole also acknowledged the timing constraints the Senate could face as part of the process.
“I don’t think that’s a reasonable possibility, because time,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.), a senior appropriator, told The Hill on Tuesday when asked about hopes of conferencing three funding bills to pass by the end of the month.
Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.), the upper chamber’s funding chief overseeing USDA funding, said Tuesday that discussions are ongoing at the staff level in both chambers when asked about the chances of a bicameral deal on his subcommittee’s annual funding plan.
“Our staffs are working on it right now, OK, and trying to find out all the areas of agreement between our bill and theirs and any disagreement, and if we can include them, that’d be great.”
“But yeah, I think it’s going to be challenging,” he said.
With less than 20 days standing between Congress and the month’s end, tensions only seem to be rising.
In recent days, Democrats have warned their GOP colleagues not to expect a similar outcome for this month’s funding to what Washington witnessed in March — when Senate Democrats took a beating from their base for helping Republicans pass a GOP-crafted plan to keep the government open through early fall.
“What the Republicans have proposed is not good enough to meet the needs of the American people and not good enough to get our votes,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told reporters Wednesday.
