Senate Majority Leader John Thune arrives at the Capitol on March 11. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP)
WASHINGTON — Congressional leaders seeking to avert a shutdown of most federal agencies remained locked in debate about short-term legislation days before a key deadline.
With funding authority set to expire March 14, senior lawmakers as of March 13 had yet to sign off on a legislative framework designed to ensure agencies’ operations through the remainder of the fiscal year.
Partisan approval in the House on March 11 of a spending measure that would keep transportation agencies and other federal departments open through the end of September was followed by tense negotiations in the Senate.
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the chamber’s majority leader, pointed to the urgency of the moment as he called on colleagues to avert a shutdown. “There is a funding vehicle available … that will fund the government through the end of the fiscal year — [Sept.] 30 — and we are prepared to take it up here in the Senate and make sure that, on Friday, the government stays open,” the Senate Republican leader explained. “But it will be up to the Democrats as to whether or not that happens.”
Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort.
But Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their Continuing Resolution without any input from Congressional Democrats.
Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to pass the House CR.
Our caucus…
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) March 12, 2025
While Thune’s caucus has endorsed the House-passed funding stopgap bill, Senate Democrats support a one-month continuing resolution. A vote in the Senate to avert a shutdown did not occur by Transport Topics’ print publishing deadline.
The Republican-led House and Senate appropriations funding committees have not considered full fiscal year legislation since the start of the current session of Congress in January. Instead, they’re getting by on shorter-term funding packages, known as continuing resolutions.
“Our caucus is unified on a clean April 11 [continuing resolution] that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass. We should vote on that,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) told the chamber March 12.
Prior to the House’s passage of the funding bill, President Donald Trump blamed congressional Democrats for the potential shutdown. Speaking with reporters on March 9, Trump argued, “The Democrats want that. They want to destroy the country. So, I can’t tell you, but it could happen. It shouldn’t have happened, and it probably won’t. I think the [continuing resolution] is going to get passed. We’ll see. But it could happen. You never know.” Trump added, “The Democrats are out of control.”
The House has done its job and passed a clean CR to fund the federal government.
If Senate Democrats block an up-or-down vote on this, then it’s crystal clear: THEY want to shut down the government. Period. Full stop.
— Speaker Mike Johnson (@SpeakerJohnson) March 13, 2025
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is directing policy committees in his chamber to proceed with the drafting of a comprehensive budget and tax legislative package. The policy panels, such as the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, have yet to schedule votes on that budget package.
The procedural budget reconciliation bill — separate from the fiscal year funding measures — would be designed to reflect much of Trump’s agenda. That agenda would pertain to immigration enforcement, border security, domestic manufacturing, military readiness, supply chain connectivity and extending the 2017 tax cuts advanced during Trump’s first White House term.
Johnson said he plans to finalize this budget reconciliation process, which would require a simple majority for passage in Congress, before Memorial Day. “I put it on an aggressive timetable to try to get a vote on the one big, beautiful bill, the reconciliation package on the House floor before Easter. If we do that, you’re pushing it over to the Senate for them to act upon,” Johnson said March 12.
“It’s conceivable you could get this to the president’s desk by the end of April or early May, certainly before Memorial Day,” the speaker continued. “To me, that must happen because we’ve got to get certainty. We have to allow the effects and the benefits of this bill to be seen and felt by everybody, from business owners to consumers and taxpayers all across the country. That will happen.”
Senior Democrats are unified in their opposition to the Republican leadership’s maneuvers to advance Trump’s budget and tax agenda. Budget Committee ranking member Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) affirmed last month, “The House Republican budget plan does three things: slashes programs for families, hands even more massive tax giveaways to billionaires, and explodes the deficit — each of which is incredibly unpopular on its own. Packaging all three together makes them a disaster for hard-working Americans. This is all part of the Republican plan: families lose, billionaires win.”
