SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
House Republicans have unveiled their plan to keep the government funded through September. President Trump backs the bill, and House Democrats have already said they will oppose it. And here to talk about it is NPR’s Eric McDaniel. Hey, Eric.
ERIC MCDANIEL, BYLINE: Hey, Scott.
DETROW: What’s in it?
MCDANIEL: Well, let’s start here. You might have heard about President Trump’s talking about his one big, beautiful bill with all of his priorities. This is not that. I also want to say, it’s not a change to the biggies, Social Security and Medicare. Those get their funding continued automatically. What it is, is sort of clearing House Republicans’ to-do list in order to focus on Trump’s priorities – basically, keeping the lights on through the fall, while they focus on the policy stuff.
But it is interesting, as far as stopgap measures go. Like most extensions, it keeps funding basically unchanged. But this time they’re increasing defense spending and paring back domestic spending, with changes to the funding levels for lots of individual programs. Though, in the end, it’s just an overall spending reduction about – of about $8 billion, which would be a lot of money for me but is basically nothing in the scheme of government spending.
DETROW: Eight billion dollars, you know – any particular programs that you think are worth flagging individually here?
MCDANIEL: Well, I will say, you hear a lot about earmarked special projects that lawmakers champion. There are none of those in this bill, but Immigration and Customs Enforcement would see some more money going their way – also, some more money for WIC, which provides food support for families with low incomes. There are cuts to fundings for the nation’s big health care research hub – the National Institutes of Health – and programs in the education department.
But the big thing to understand about all the fiddling with the numbers here is that it’s an indication that House Republicans don’t think they’ll need House Democrats’ help on this. That’s Republican speaker Mike Johnson – thinks he can get it done with just Republican votes, but he’s got a tiny margin for error.
DETROW: And that’s worth underscoring. We’re talking, like, one vote margin of error.
MCDANIEL: That’s right. He can lose a single Republican vote. And in past go-rounds, that would have been a gamble. Johnson had to rely over and over on Democratic votes to keep the engine running. But these changes are designed to appeal to this subset of anti-spending folks in the party, like Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Massie almost always votes against spending bills. He’s part of this small but mighty set of congressional Republicans who want to see regular order on spending – aka, a fully churned-through, debated, negotiated package for 12 separate funding bills for everything in the government, rather than these stopgaps without the flexibility to make big changes.
But, of course, Trump is pleading with Republicans. He literally put please, exclamation point, in a post online, asking them to, quote, “remain united. No dissent on this.” And that has a big impact on support.
DETROW: Look, at the same time, there has been a long track record of Democrats helping Republicans get these bills over the line. Broadly speaking, the Democratic Party is one in which many members believe in the core functions of government, right? Are we sure that Democrats will not help out here?
MCDANIEL: I’m not totally sure, but I will say, I’ve got this statement here from Rosa DeLauro. She’s from Connecticut. She’s the top Dem on the Appropriations Committee, and here’s how it starts.
(Reading) I strongly oppose this full-year continuing resolution – she calls it – a power grab for the White House and further allowing unchecked billionaire Elon Musk and President Trump to steal from the American people.
So I’d say it doesn’t look like there’s a lot of room for collaboration, but the vote will test if Democrats can stick together or if some are unwilling to risk that shutdown, like you were talking about.
DETROW: One other thing that’s always worth flagging – this is just one step in a multistep process, and things could change in any one of those steps.
MCDANIEL: Right. And in the Senate, Republican Majority Leader John Thune will absolutely need Democratic votes. The chamber has a de facto threshold of 60 votes to pass most legislation. Republicans have 53 seats, so he’ll need to pick up seven Democrats at least. And that could be pretty hard, given the reaction we’ve seen so far. As former President Biden often says, lots of luck in your senior year.
DETROW: That is NPR’s Eric McDaniel. Thanks for coming by.
MCDANIEL: A pleasure, Scott.
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