“It’s going to be a problem,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (W.Va.), the No. 5 Senate Republican and an Appropriations Committee member, told The Hill.
“We’ll go into a collaborative conference, try to hash it out,” Capito continued. “But I don’t think it’s going to be easy.”
Earlier this week, House Republicans affirmed they would be writing their spending bills for fiscal 2024 using topline figures set by Congress more than a year ago.
The move could mean a $120 billion cut that Democrats in both chambers and most Senate Republicans are not at all prepared to make.
Some Senate Republicans were already upset that the debt ceiling agreement likely will not allow for what they felt would be a sufficient increase in defense spending in any 2024 funding deal.
But they fear the possibility of even greater cuts is making the road to an agreement even more treacherous than before.
“I’m not concerned that we lack the capacity to do it,” Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), a Senate Appropriations Committee member, told The Hill. “But we have to have the will to get on it.”
Senators on both sides of the aisle are warning the national security implications will be dire if the cuts take place.
“I think there’s an incentive for both sides to try and get to a deal even though it’s going to be really hard,” said Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 2 Senate Republican.
“Moving bills here is hard enough. It’s going to be really challenging I think in the House.”
The Hill’s Al Weaver has more here.
