Congressional Democrats rolled out their own short-term funding patch to keep the government running beyond Friday’s shutdown deadline, as House Republicans barrel forward with a Trump-endorsed plan in the face of staunch opposition from the other side of the aisle.
The bill would keep the government funded through April, a sharp contrast to the roughly six-month stopgap being pushed by Republicans and President Trump.
“There is a very clear alternative to House Republicans’ plan: immediately passing a short-term patch to prevent a senseless shutdown and finishing work on serious, bipartisan funding bills that invest in working Americans, keep our country safe, and ensure our constituents have a say in how federal funding is spent,” Sen. Patty Murray (Wash.) and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), top Democrats on the appropriations committees in the Senate and House, respectively, said in a joint statement.
“Today, we are introducing a short-term continuing resolution to do just that. Congress should work together in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown and invest in working families and communities in every part of the country,” they said.
The long-shot bid comes as House Republicans are expected to vote on their funding plan as early as Tuesday.
Negotiators on both sides had previously been hopeful of striking a bipartisan deal on overall government spending for fiscal 2025, which began in October.
But both parties have struggled to reach an overall funding agreement amid a fierce debate over the president’s authority to withhold dollars already allocated by Congress and lay off thousands of federal workers as part of a sweeping operation to reshape the government.
Republicans have been pointing fingers at Democrats for the sputtered funding talks, saying any blame for a potential government shutdown should fall squarely on their shoulders, while panning Democratic asks for assurances that the administration will spend the money as directed as a nonstarter.
“Democrats wanted a lot of things in the bill that were not originally even under discussion, and I think it’s a reaction to [the Department of Government Efficiency] and Trump, you know, that we don’t normally put an appropriations bill,” House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said on Monday.
“And you’re not going to get a Republican Senate in the Republican House to restrain a Republican president,” Cole said.
Republicans have called their stopgap “clean,” with Cole saying on Monday that there’s “no DOGE savings in here, there’s no nothing in here.”
But top Democratic appropriators have accused Republicans of shortchanging programs like the National Institutes of Health (NIH), nuclear weapons proliferation programs, as well as agricultural research efforts and some farmer assistance at the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
