If last year’s Republican megabill served as Congress’s gateway drug to party-line government funding, the GOP’s latest spending plan makes clear it was habit-forming.<\/p>\n
Nine months ago, Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to bypass the Democratic filibuster and enact more than $280 billion for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. It broke the conventional wisdom on Capitol Hill that the special power of reconciliation cannot \u2014 and should not \u2014 be used to block the broad actions Congress takes each year to fund federal agencies.<\/p>\n
Now President Donald Trump has told Congressmen on June 1<\/u>given time till","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/04\/01\/trump-demands-republican-only-dhs-bill-by-june-1-00854042","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640000","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640001","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Congressional Republicans given until June 1<\/u> Funding Immigration and Customs Enforcement \u2013 \u200b\u200ban entire government agency \u2013 through a partisan process that won’t require a single Democratic vote. Republicans are also considering whether to similarly finance the war in the Middle East, with the White House considering a $200 billion request<\/u>","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/03\/19\/congress-braces-for-200b-iran-war-request-00835914","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640002","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640003","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>$200 billion request<\/u> For supplemental funding for the Pentagon.<\/p>\n
Republicans say this is happening because Democrats have refused to support a measure to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security without curbing immigration enforcement activities, which the GOP considers intolerable, leading to the current record-breaking shutdown. Democrats are also unlikely to support giving the Trump administration additional dollars to increase its military presence in Iran.<\/p>\n
“The Democrats have put us where we are, and we have to deal with it,” Senator John Hoeven of North Dakota, a senior Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee, told reporters on Monday. “we have no choice.”<\/p>\n
But Hoeven also acknowledged that it could be a slippery slope. Asked if he was concerned about setting a new precedent, he admitted, “Me, as an appropriator? Yes.”<\/p>\n
Democrats previously used their own party-line bill to fund programs opposed by Republicans during the Biden administration, such as an $80 billion investment for IRS tax enforcement. But this was in addition to the funding agencies received through regular appropriations, not as a replacement for it.<\/p>\n
Democrats are pushing the idea that they are responsible for the GOP’s go-it-alone approach \u2014 and they’re warning about the dire consequences.<\/p>\n
Senior appropriators Senator Chris Coons (D-Del.) said it would be “a tragic mistake” for Republicans to push for war while sidelining their minority party colleagues.<\/p>\n
To implement funding through reconciliation, Coons said, “doesn’t require any agreement with the other side. And if it becomes the only way to fund core functions of the government, that’s a bad idea.”<\/p>\n
Senate Majority Leader John Thune suggested Thursday that the outcome of the current funding fight could have long-term implications, warning that it is “not good for the country or for the future of the appropriations process or, for that matter, for the future of the Senate.”<\/p>\n
It is the latest blow to the bipartisan norms of the congressional appropriations process during Trump’s second term. White House Budget Director Russ Vought Has a Playbook<\/u>has been implemented","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/07\/17\/congress\/russ-vought-appropriations-process-has-to-be-less-bipartisan-00459479","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640004","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640005","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Russ Watt has executed a playbook<\/u> That’s down to cross-party funding negotiations, and Republican leaders have gone with those tactics, including the stopgap funding patch that angered Democrats last spring.<\/u>","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/03\/14\/stumer-democrats-anger-shutdown-fight-00231908","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640006","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640007","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Democrats got angry last spring<\/u> and clawbacks package<\/u>enactment of","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2025\/07\/18\/house-passes-public-media-foreign-aid-clawbacks-after-epstein-scramble-00462085","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640008","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb95640009","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Enactment of clawback package<\/u> Last summer, Congress canceled billions of dollars of funding previously approved with bipartisan support.<\/p>\n
Many Republicans are not happy with how the latest move is unfolding, with top GOP appropriators particularly concerned about funding the war effort without Democratic buy-in.<\/p>\n
“I would prefer not to do that,” House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said late last month about approving an emergency military package through the party-line process. But, he added, “We’ll wait and see. A lot of it depends on what the Democrats want to do.”<\/p>\n
Three Hill Republican aides, who were granted anonymity to speak candidly, privately predicted that the reduction in existing funding would lead to a future tit-for-tat for the appropriations process. Amid concerns that Republican presidents would routinely be forced to use reconciliation to clear immigration enforcement funding through Congress, and Democratic presidents would have to use it to fund non-defense efforts, GOP leaders are less eager to promote it.<\/p>\n
Republicans are now exploring the possibility of extending immigration enforcement funding for the remainder of Trump’s presidency \u2014 not just for the current fiscal year.<\/p>\n
Representative Henry Cuellar of Texas, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security funding panel, said a future Congress under Democratic control could follow the GOP’s example and use reconciliation to fund agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Health and Human Services.<\/p>\n
“So I’m definitely concerned about a bad precedent that they would set,” Cuellar said in an interview Thursday.<\/p>\n
The big thing here “is to put the passive discretionary things into reconciliation,” said Matt Glassman, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute.<\/p>\n
“Because of the ability to create party-line legislation in reconciliation bills, it allows a backdoor for party-line discretionary appropriations,” he said in an interview.<\/p>\n
Glassman also sees the increased use of reconciliation as a way to overcome mutually negotiated constraints on spending. Limits on the use of the money, and how much time agencies have to spend it, have long been a hallmark of bipartisan funding negotiations.<\/p>\n
“If you put money into these bills, you lose the control aspect that they like to put into appropriations with the border provisions,” Glassman said.<\/p>\n
Senate Appropriations Chairwoman Susan Collins (R-Maine) said last week that Democrats’ refusal to fund Border Patrol or ICE without major policy changes “sets a precedent that they may one day regret.”<\/p>\n
Other senior congressional appropriators argue that the bipartisan agreement that Collins helped broker in recent months is proof that the annual funding process is working and that reconciliation is not a viable option. Despite DHS drama, Congress approves $1.6 trillion<\/u>succeeded in approving more than","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/02\/03\/congress-ends-shutdown-00762482","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb9564000a","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb9564000b","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>Approval of more than 1.6 trillion dollars<\/u> For every other federal department after 43 days of government shutdown<\/u>","Add":{"Target": :"New","Property":(),"url": :"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2025\/11\/12\/congress\/trump-signs-bill-ending-longest-government-shutdown-in-us-history-00650189","_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb9564000c","_Type": :"33ac701a-72c1-316a-a3a5-13918cf384df"},"_Identification": :"0000019d-52eb-d501-adff-f3eb9564000d","_Type": :"02ec1f82-5e56-3b8c-af6e-6fc7c8772266"}”>43 day government shutdown<\/u> Last fall.<\/p>\n
The House’s leading Democratic appropriator, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, said in a statement this week that “reconciliation will never be a substitute for the appropriations process.”<\/p>\n
He said, “Republicans must realize that our country is safer and stronger when government funding decisions are made by both Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate.”<\/p>\n
Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
If last year’s Republican megabill served as Congress’s gateway drug to party-line government funding, the GOP’s latest spending plan makes clear it was habit-forming. Nine months ago, Republicans used the budget reconciliation process to bypass the Democratic filibuster and enact more than $280 billion for the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security. It broke<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38152,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[462,2929,2398,15316,2566],"class_list":["post-38150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bible-verse","tag-funding","tag-ice","tag-republicans","tag-slippery","tag-slope"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38153,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38150\/revisions\/38153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}