By Bo Erickson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The Republicans who control the U.S. House of Representatives plan to vote on Tuesday on a six-month stopgap funding bill to fund the government through October 31, when the current 2025 fiscal year ends.
They have until midnight ET on Friday (0400 GMT on Saturday) to avert a partial government shutdown. Here’s a look at what’s in the bill, which President Donald Trump has urged his Republican colleagues to support:
CONTINUING RESOLUTION
The stopgap funding bill is called a “continuing resolution” – or CR – as it extends government funding previously approved by Congress. The 99-page bill mostly extends fiscal 2024 spending but, say Republicans, cuts spending overall.
This is the workaround process to keep the government open so long as Congress fails to pass the 12 appropriations bills across the federal government.
None of the 12 have been individually approved since FY2006, according to the Congressional Research Service.
WHAT’S IN THE BILL?
The House Republican bill on the table reduces spending by about $7 billion from fiscal 2024 levels, Republican House leadership aides said.
To do this, about $13 billion in non-defense discretionary spending is cut across the federal departments while defense spending is increased by about $6 billion.
The uptick in defense spending includes an already-passed pay increase for junior members of the military, as well as additional funding for warship building and other equipment.
DOGE CUTS NEXT YEAR?
The stopgap funding bill does not include proposed cuts to the federal government by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said Republicans will work to incorporate those DOGE cuts in the FY2026 appropriation process.
NO MANDATORY SPENDING INVOLVED
This government funding process only involves discretionary spending, which is about one-third of the more than $6.75 trillion annual federal budget.
Mandatory spending for the Social Security retirement program and Medicare and Medicaid, the government healthcare programs, is not included in the CR. These mandatory programs are the largest costs for the government and represent 40% of the increased spending in the past fiscal year, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Deficit Tracker, adding to the country’s deficit.
It also does not cover the cost of interest payments on the federal government’s more than $36 trillion in debt, which cost more than $1 trillion last year.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson; Editing by Scott Malone and Howard Goller)
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