Resources: Six-Month Republican Continuing Resolution
FACT SHEET: Republicans Abdicate Their Responsibility to Govern
**Updated to reflect changes made with adoption of the Rule**
Other Continuing Resolution Resources
- Ranking Member DeLauro’s Statement on the Continuing Resolution
- **NEW** Secretary of the Army Christine E. Wormuth Letter on Continuing Resolution
- **NEW** U.S. Army Fiscal Year 2025 Continuing Resolution Impacts
- **NEW** Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti Letter on Continuing Resolution
- **NEW** Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall III Letter on Continuing Resolution
- Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough Letter on Continuing Resolution
- Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Martin O’Malley Letter on Continuing Resolution
- Defense Secretary Austin Letter on Continuing Resolution
- Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries: Dear Colleague on the Government Funding Process
- White House: Congressional Republicans are Wasting Time Instead of Delivering for the American People Yet Again
- Statement of Administration Policy 💀⚰️Dead on Arrival⚰️💀 “Instead of working in a bipartisan manner to keep the Government open and provide emergency funding for disaster needs, House Republicans have chosen brinksmanship…If the President were presented with H.R. 9494, he would veto it.”
- Trump’s Project 2025 Shapes Republicans’ Funding Bills
Republicans Abdicate Their Responsibility to Govern
Just like last year, House Republicans squandered an entire year by forcing Congress to consider funding bills based on Trump’s Project 2025 that have no chance of becoming law. And just like last year, House Republicans’ refusal to meet House Democrats at the table has left us without time to pass all 12 full-year funding bills before the end of September.
House Republicans Set Record for Length of Failure For at least 40 years, no initial continuing resolution has ever extended as far as March 28. The closest Congress came to an initial continuing resolution of March 28 was in fiscal year 2013, when the first continuing resolution of the year extended until March 27. More than half of the bills wound up in a year-long continuing resolution that year. Since fiscal year 2013, Congress has finished its work before March 28 in all but one year, when Republicans dragged the appropriations process out until May in fiscal year 2017 to give President Trump an opportunity to weigh in on the bills. There is no record of the process ever dragging out as long as it did in fiscal year 2017. |
The 6-month-long continuing resolution House Republicans introduced Friday hurts veterans, the military, disaster assistance, and domestic investments. Republicans are:
Shortchanging veterans and jeopardizing their care. An additional $12 billion is needed before the new year to maintain medical care for veterans. The House Republican bill does not include a single dollar of the $12 billion needed, shortchanging veterans and jeopardizing the medical services they need and have earned.
According to the Office of Management and Budget, without this $12 billion: “VA would have insufficient funding to maintain medical care operations for veterans through FY 2025. Absent this funding, VA needs to begin addressing any potential shortfall as early as the first quarter of FY 2025.”
House Republicans’ continuing resolution provides zero dollars for veterans medical services. Worse still, the majority has tried to cover their tracks with window dressing. Section 144 of the continuing resolution gives the VA authority to spend funding provided—in the continuing resolution—for medical services faster than they normally would be allowed. Republicans are essentially saying, “Spend $0 as fast as you like.” This would be laughable if not for the veterans who are faced with serious illnesses and simply need their medical care. |
When Congress passed the PACT Act in 2022 – with 342 votes in the House and 86 in the Senate – Congress promised veterans with toxic exposures that they would be taken care of. Republicans seem uninterested in those commitments to veterans now that it is time to pay the bill.
Increasing Social Security Administration wait times.The House Republican bill does not include additional funding for the Social Security Administration’s operating budget, which means the agency would be forced to reduce hours or close field offices to the public. It would also result in longer wait times for seniors applying for retirement claims, longer wait times for individuals calling the national 800-number, and record-high wait times for initial disability claims.
Hurting national security and military readiness. Putting government funding on autopilot for six months prevents the Department of Defense and Services from winding down programs that are no longer necessary or strengthening modernization capabilities. It also constrains security programs at levels below what is allowed in the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA).
Secretary Austin stated a six-month continuing resolution would “…subject Service members and their families to unnecessary stress, empower our adversaries, misalign billions of dollars, damage our readiness, and impede our ability to react to emergent events.”
Not only does the continuing resolution leave over $5 billion in national security investments on the table, but under House Republicans’ proposal we would be facing at least $40 billion in across-the-board cuts called sequestration to defense programs on April 30, likely approaching 5 percent. That would mean cuts, not just below current continuing resolution levels, not just below last year’s level, but below what was enacted in December of 2022 for fiscal year 2023. We would see cuts to all military operations, procurement, and research and development activities; cuts to nuclear weapons and cleanup missions at the Department of Energy; cuts to antiterrorism efforts at the Federal Bureau of Investigation; and cuts to cybersecurity efforts at the Department of Homeland Security. |
Needlessly putting disaster recovery efforts at risk during hurricane season. FEMA is currently operating under an Immediate Needs Funding (INF) posture, which means it is so low on funds that it must pause public assistance projects to instead fund only lifesaving and life-sustaining activities. The House Republican continuing resolution only provides $10 billion in new emergency funds, but the total supplemental funding requirement exceeds $24 billion. Even one major disaster could force FEMA to reimplement a pause on funding public assistance projects because FEMA must ensure that it has sufficient funding for lifesaving and life-sustaining activities through September 2025. For context, as of September 6, after operating in this pause for just one month, FEMA has been forced to defer $6.1 billion of long-term public assistance recovery and hazard mitigation projects.
Focusing only on enacting Trump’s Project 2025.A six-month continuing resolution is a ploy to slash domestic investments in health care, education, job training, and all other discretionary resources. A continuing resolution to the end of March provides Republicans with more leverage to attempt to force their unpopular cuts to services that American families depend on to make ends meet. Republicans want to hold government programs hostage to execute Trump’s Project 2025 to remove checks and balances, increase the power held by the President, and further their goal of making abortion illegal nationally.