Another Round of Fiscal Battle Planned by House

As the Senate’s recent security aid package is likely to fail in the House, and the House’s H.R.2 is unlikely to make headway in the Senate, the upcoming federal spending bill negotiations are not expected to be easy with the March 1 deadline rapidly approaching to avoid a shutdown.

At stake is $1.7 trillion of taxpayer money, and much of the debate will be over “riders,” policy amendments that are attached to a larger bill and designed to address and fund specific issues.

Hard-line Republicans in the House will be looking to put up as many barriers as they can to keep spending under control, but in the end, it may just delay the inevitable.

Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., who heads the House panel responsible for financial services funding said to Politico, “It is going to challenge the speaker [Mike Johnson, R-La.] in a remarkable way, for sure.”

Earlier this week, the Democrats flipped the previous House seat held by George Santos, shrinking the Republican influence in the House with now 219 for the GOP and 213 seats for the Democrats. Speaker Johnson will likely need Democrat help to get any federal spending agreement across the finish line.

“The big stumbling block will be if they’re insisting — which they shouldn’t — on the riders, which are unacceptable,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., said in an interview. DeLauro, who heads the subcommittee to fund the Department of Health and Human Services added, “We can get it done. I don’t know what obstacles may be thrown in our way … but we’ve got time to get it done. I say, damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.”

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho., a House appropriator, said “a lot of the differences” between both chambers and both parties “are going to be on policy. That’s where the fight’s going to be.”

Over at the Senate, the mood was slightly more optimistic about avoiding a shutdown. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii said, “The House as an institution has figured out — maybe stumbling backwards into it, but still figured out — that the only way to enact any legislation in a divided Congress is on a bipartisan basis.

“So now that they’re doing that, we’ll continue to do our job. We’ve got some haggling to do with each other and then across the Capitol,” he added.