House, Senate take starkly different approaches with funding bills

Congressional negotiators are fast at work in advancing 12 annual government funding bills out of committee, but the chambers are moving in very different directions.

For weeks, House Democratic negotiators have bemoaned the partisan bills the GOP-led spending committee has advanced without bipartisan support, as Republicans seek to cut funding beyond the spending limits set in a budget cap deal negotiated by President Biden and Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in late spring. 

A stark contrast is playing out in the upper chamber, where Democrats, who hold the majority, have advanced their own funding bills with overwhelming bipartisan votes in recent weeks. 

“These should all be out of committee before we go through August,” Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.), who heads the appropriations subcommittee overseeing defense funding, told The Hill Thursday, referring to the coming weeks-long recess slated for next month. 

“If somebody wants to be an obstructionist, of course they can always obstruct, and we won’t get anything done, which is fairly typical, but I don’t think that’s going to happen,” Tester said, while adding he thinks the Senate will be able to knock out the bills quickly after the recess.

The approach comes as some Senate Democratic negotiators say they are hoping the upper chamber takes the lead in bicameral negotiations, particularly as members on both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about the likelihood of shutdown later this year.

So far, the Senate Appropriations Committee has cleared five fiscal 2024 funding bills along largely bipartisan lines, including three pieces of legislation this week that fund agencies like the departments of Justice (DOJ), Commerce (DOC), Treasury, NASA, and the Small Business Association (SBA). 

Republicans have credited the show of bipartisanship to the fresh blood at the helm of the funding committee, Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), the new chair and vice chair.

“It goes to the leadership, quite frankly, of the committee,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), top Republican on the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies appropriations subcommittee. She added that Senate leaders Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have also “pledged to work in relationship to Susan and Patty.” 

“And I think they’re fulfilling that, at least for now,” Capito said. “So, we need to get them off onto the floor and debate them.”

Her comments come as the Senate panel awaits consideration of some of its potentially most difficult bills. That includes legislation laying out proposed Pentagon funding for fiscal 2024, and the labor and health bill assembled by the subpanel Capito helps lead.

“It’s just two different processes,” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-N.J.), head of the appropriations subcommittee on homeland security, said. “It’s just the nature of the House that can pass things with only Republican votes, and a Senate that has to pass things with bipartisan votes.”

But bipartisanship in the upper chamber has been noticeably different compared to the criticisms that Democrats serving on House Appropriations have leveled against their colleagues across the aisle.

House Democratic appropriators railed against Republicans this week as the GOP-led committee greenlit significant cuts along party lines in the fiscal 2024 state, foreign operations and related programs appropriations (SFOPs) bill, as well as the annual ​​financial services and general government (FSSG) bill.

“In their 2024 funding bill, House Republicans are catering to their most extreme members at the expense of America’s historic position on the world stage,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Conn.), top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said of the SFOPs bill, which provides $52.5 billion in funding for programs covered by the subcommittee. The figure is a 12 percent cut from current levels. 

The FSSG bill, which covers offices like the Treasury and the SBA, allocates about $11.3 billion in funding, while additionally calling for more than $13 billion in recissions from the Democrats’ previously passed Inflation Reduction Act.

“Cutting FSGG funding by an extreme 58 percent, this bill has severe consequences for our country and its people,” Financial Services Appropriations Subcommittee ranking member Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said in a statement. “It deprives crucial agencies of the funding they need to enforce the law and serve the American people.”

House GOP negotiators said last month that they would be reverting to the fiscal 2022 top-line levels for new government funding legislation, as hard-line conservatives pressed for spending far below the levels that Biden and McCarthy agreed to as part of the Fiscal Responsibility Act.

The push also comes as House Republicans passed the annual defense policy bill, dubbed the National Defense Authorization Act, with little Democratic support this week. 

The partisan vote was notable for a measure that has been known to fetch broad bipartisan support, though unsurprising after Democrats attacked the bill for including multiple GOP-backed provisions touching on hot-button issues like abortion, transgender rights, diversity and inclusion initiatives.

The partisan battle over the must-pass defense bill provides a glimpse of what could be in store for lawmakers as they hurry to pass their annual funding bills ahead of a looming government shutdown deadline in late September. 

Pressed about the defense bill’s tough road to passage in the Democratic-led Senate, McCarthy said he hopes “the bills that come out of the House are different than the bills that Sen. Schumer is in charge of.”

“We designed our government to be this way because then we go to conference, and we find where we can unite,” McCarthy said.