Speaker Mike Johnson and President Trump were working on Tuesday to tamp down Republican defections ahead of a vote on a bill to fund the government through Sept. 30 and avert a shutdown at the end of the week.
A vote was expected on Tuesday afternoon on the legislation that would keep last year’s spending levels largely flat, but would increase spending for the military by $6 billion. It would slightly decrease spending overall, because it would not include funds for any projects in lawmakers’ districts or states. And it would force a cut of more than $1 billion from the District of Columbia’s budget for the rest of the fiscal year.
House Democratic leaders are pressing their members to oppose the legislation, arguing that it would provide too much discretion to the Trump administration and the Elon Musk-led effort to drastically reduce federal spending. They have also claimed they cannot support it because it does not protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — although those programs are not funded through the appropriations process.
If all Democrats are present and unite to voting against the bill, House G.O.P. leaders can afford only one Republican defection. Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky has already said he would vote no, even as Mr. Trump savages him for opposing the measure and threatens to recruit an opponent to challenge him in the next election.
“Unless I get a lobotomy Monday that causes me to forget what I’ve witnessed the past 12 years, I’ll be a NO on the CR this week,” Mr. Massie wrote on social media, using the shorthand for a continuing resolution to keep funding the government at current spending levels. “It amazes me that my colleagues and many of the public fall for the lie that we will fight another day.”
Many conservative House Republicans have refused in the past to support stopgap funding bills because they keep spending flat without making any cuts. That has forced Republican speakers to rely repeatedly on Democrats for the votes to pass legislation to avoid a shutdown — a strategy that led to the ouster of Kevin McCarthy as speaker in 2023.
But hard-liners who previously balked at voting for temporary spending legislation said on Tuesday they were more inclined to do so this time as way of giving Mr. Trump flexibility to continue his campaign to dismantle and defund major pieces of the federal government via Mr. Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency. That support came after a hard press from the White House. Mr. Trump and Russell T. Vought, his budget director, met with conservative members of the House Freedom Caucus last week and pitched them on the legislation.
“I think for a lot of people back home, they’re wondering, ‘Why isn’t this just the same thing that Congress always does?’” said Representative Warren Davidson of Ohio. “This is how the president has asked us to fight now, so that they can do what they’re doing with DOGE.”
Mr. Johnson late last year refused to accept a funding extension that would run through September, insisting on a mid-March deadline that would allow Mr. Trump to put his own stamp on federal spending shortly after taking office. But Republicans have failed to pass any spending bills into law that would do so, leaving them with no choice other than a temporary patch if they want to avoid a shutdown after midnight on March 14.
Meeting with House Republicans on Tuesday morning, Vice President JD Vance argued that the measure was the best they could do under the circumstances.
“Our vice president made it clear that, ‘Hey, they’ve only been in office six weeks, and so it’s hard to have any different outcome than where we are right now,’ ” said Representative Mark Alford of Missouri.
Representative Michael Cloud of Texas, who routinely votes against stopgap funding bills, said he would vote to support this one.
“This is us, in a sense, giving the keys to the president to be able to continue to do the great work that they’re doing,” Mr. Cloud said, adding later: “If it wasn’t for the trust in the president and his administration, voting for a C.R. wouldn’t even be a conversation.”
Several House Republicans have said they felt comfortable voting for the bill because they were confident the Trump White House would continue refusing to spend the money Congress had appropriated for programs that conservatives long opposed.
“I think the comfort is that you’ve got leaders like Marco Rubio at the State Department who aren’t going to spend the U.S.A.I.D. money,” Mr. Davidson said.
The administration’s power to do so is being challenged in multiple federal courts.
