Lawmakers eye bipartisan funding stopgap as appropriations bills make minimal headway

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(The Center Square) – With 26 days until the federal government runs out of money, top appropriators have narrowed in on their preferred funding gameplan: push the equivalent of the Senate’s three-bill minibus through the House, then let a Continuing Resolution temporarily cover the rest.

Approving a CR would mark the fourth time in a row that U.S. lawmakers have punted on funding the government properly, having passed three CRs in fiscal year 2025 to keep government funding essentially on cruise control. Congress is supposed to craft and pass 12 appropriations bills on an annual basis, providing updated funding for federal agencies to spend on programs.

So far, however, not a single fiscal year 2026 appropriations bill has passed both the House and Senate. As of Thursday, three partisan funding bills have passed the House, while a bipartisan three-bill minibus passed the Senate right before lawmakers recessed in August. Both chambers must ultimately approve the same text. 

Given the fast-approaching Sept. 30 government shutdown deadline, Republicans and Democrats in both chambers are advocating for the House to approve the Senate’s minibus. With some federal agencies covered, lawmakers would then pass a short-term CR to buy lawmakers time to pass the remaining nine appropriations bills.

House and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairs Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., and Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, have reportedly endorsed that route. Senate Appropriations Committee Vice Chair Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said she supports the plan as well – but only so long as the CR is “a real bipartisan compromise” that also “reflect[s] Democratic values and principles.”

“Just as we have worked in a bipartisan fashion here in the Senate on fiscal year 2026 funding, Republicans and Democrats need to work together to fund the government with a short-term CR at the end of the month,” Murray told lawmakers Wednesday. 

“If House Republicans, however, go a different route and try and jam through a partisan CR without any input from Democratic members of Congress, and they suddenly find they don’t have the votes they need from our caucus to fund the government – well then, that is a Republican shutdown,” she warned.

Convincing fiscal hawks in the House to approve both the bipartisan minibus and yet another funding stopgap may prove difficult, however.

The minibus includes the MilCon-VA, Agriculture and Legislative Branch funding bills, each with plenty of Democratic earmarks. More than $153 billion would go to military construction and Veterans Affairs, $27 billion to the Department of Agriculture and other rural development offices, and more than $2.2 billion to the Legislative branch in fiscal year 2026.

Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., has already said he will oppose a CR, since it would automatically reauthorize funding for fiscal year 2024 Biden-era initiatives that Republicans oppose.