Senate leaders: House spending bills violate agreement, will lead to shutdown

It’s September. That means Congress has until the end of the month to pass 12 appropriations bills; otherwise the government will shutdown Oct. 1 at midnight. However, there’s a big divide between what conservative members in the House of Representatives are willing to spend and everyone else. 

It goes back to May when Republicans and the Biden administration made a deal on the debt ceiling which allowed the government to borrow more money to pay its bills in exchange reduced overall spending. The deal also set a guideline for next year’s budget. 

“The House then turned around and passed spending levels that were below that level. Without stating an opinion about that, that’s not going to be replicated in the Senate,” Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., explained. 

Earlier in the year, McConnell supported House Republicans’ efforts to negotiate with the Biden administration on the debt ceiling. During an event in Kentucky, he described the current state of the government funding negotiations as “a pretty big mess.” 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was also blunt. 

“We cannot afford the brinkmanship or hostage-taking we saw from House Republicans earlier this year when they pushed our country to the brink of default to appease the most extreme members of their party.” Schumer wrote in a letter to Senate Democrats that was obtained by Politico. “The only way to avoid a shutdown is through bipartisanship.”

Senate negotiations are being led by Sens. Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Susan Collins, R-Maine. In the House, the conservative Freedom Caucus is leading the way. 

“We’re given the solemn responsibility of using taxpayer dollars, or in this case often borrowed dollars, to fund the government,” Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Spectrum. “If there’s going to be a shutdown it’s going to be because Democrats don’t want to sit down at the table and work with us and co-equal branches of government to get the job done.” 

Even if the House and Senate separately pass all 12 bills this month, they still have to iron out the differences before the bills can be signed into law. Those conferences are time consuming. McConnell predicted the impasse will lead to a continuing resolution to keep the government open until December while the differences are settled. 

The Freedom Caucus said it won’t support a continuing resolution unless it includes certain added measures like a border bill and rescinds a Pentagon abortion policy that offers paid leave and travel expense reimbursement for service members who travel out of state to get an abortion. But if the continuing resolution is a bipartisan measure, it will have enough votes to pass without them.