Before the recess, House leaders had to abandon plans to bring the Agriculture bill to the floor. Members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus called for deeper cuts than the appropriators included and moderates opposed some of the conservative policy riders included in the bill.
Some conservatives in the House want to restore spending to the fiscal 2022 topline level without tapping unspent money from previous laws to bolster overall spending; House lawmakers used $115 billion in repeals to cushion the effects of the spending cuts.
While a continuing resolution is now needed to keep the entire government open, lawmakers have expressed growing doubts that Congress can do it.
“I was just called by a member — clearly the President [Joe] Biden and Speaker McCarthy want a government shutdown, so that’s what Congress will do after we come back in September,” Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, tweeted Monday. “Everyone should plan accordingly.”
The Senate, which has written its bills on more generous spending caps set by a debt limit suspension law, advanced all 12 bills from the Appropriations Committee on largely bipartisan votes. before recess. However, both rooms remain far from the level of expenditure.
