(The Center Square) – Senate Republicans continue to hit roadblocks in their race to pass the 12 appropriations bills funding federal agencies for fiscal year 2026 by the Sept. 30 deadline.
Although Republicans originally planned to craft and pass the government funding bills soon after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act became law, the immediate introduction of a $9 billion rescissions bill caused weeks of delay.
Now, Republicans are accusing Democrats of further holding up the Senate’s work that leaders planned to finish before the upcoming August recess, including confirming the rest of President Donald Trump’s civilian nominees and then advancing as many appropriations bills as possible.
Democrats haven’t allowed any civilian nominee to pass by voice vote or unanimous consent, which would drastically speed up the confirmation process. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., called Democrats’ refusal to quickly confirm the nominees and proceed to appropriations work “a historic level of obstruction.”
“We still have some serious work to do here in Washington [D.C.]. We need to make further progress on appropriations, and we have a number of President Trump’s nominations to get through,” Thune told lawmakers Monday. “And so we can do this the easy way, or the hard way…and that’s really up to Senate Democrats.”
As of Tuesday, only two appropriations bills have passed the House and none have passed the Senate, increasing the risk of a government shutdown in October.
There are three different routes Thune could take from here, and he is reportedly taking each into consideration.
One option is to pass a “minibus” package, which would bundle together three appropriations bills from the subcommittees focused on agriculture, rural development, and the Food and Drug Administration; Commerce, Justice, and Science; and military construction and Veterans Affairs, respectively.
Even some Republican senators are adverse to this idea, however. Some of them are clamoring for Thune’s second option, which would entail holding lawmakers over their scheduled recess.
But the most likely (and unpopular) scenario is for Senate leaders to resign themselves to passing a short-term Continuing Resolution, or CR, to keep the government open while Congress finishes the appropriations process.
If this happens, lawmakers will have punted on funding the government properly for the fourth time in a row. Congress never passed a fiscal year 2025 budget, instead passing three consecutive CRs to keep government funding on cruise control until Sept. 30.
Thune urged Democrats to “rein in their reflexive anti-Trump sentiment” and work with Republicans bipartisanly.
“The ball is in Democrats’ court,” he added. “And I remind my colleagues about the dangerous and ugly precedent that they’re setting here. The choice is theirs.”
