WASHINGTON — House Republicans face a veto threat from President Joe Biden as they hope to pass the first of their government funding bills through the full House this week.
Prompted by a rebellion from House conservatives who want to engage with culture war issues and spend less than a recent budget deal, Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is setting up a showdown with Democrats over must-pass funding bills ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline, raising fears of a government shutdown.
“We should not fear a government shutdown,” said Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., a member of the far-right Freedom Caucus. “Most of what we do up here is bad anyway.”
In the Rules Committee on Tuesday, the House could consider contentious amendments about abortion, marijuana, transgender rights, diversity training, migration and critical race theory in funding legislation for military veterans and agriculture.
The White House said Biden would veto both Republican-led bills if he is presented with them, blasting House Republicans for violating the recent budget deal and for "wasting time with partisan bills."
"The draft bills ... include numerous new, partisan policy provisions with devastating consequences including harming access to reproductive healthcare, threatening the health and safety of [LGBTQ] Americans, endangering marriage equality, hindering critical climate change initiatives, and preventing the Administration from promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion," the White House budget office said in a statement.
As the House's military and veterans funding bill heads to the Rules Committee on Tuesday, the normally bipartisan measure is poised to become the focus of a pitched battle — nearly 100 amendments have been filed, which Republican leaders will have to sort through.
Democrats are filing their own amendments, seeking to strike parts of the bill that include abortion restrictions, while Republicans have offered amendments to make the anti-abortion language more aggressive. One, from Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., would remove exceptions allowing abortion funding, while another, by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., would prohibit transferring money to another federal agency for services related to abortion.
Greene has also proposed amendments to slash NATO funding and grant the Defense Department powers to police the southern and northern borders. Another proposal, by Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., would prohibit any funds from being used to enforce potential Covid-19 mask mandates. And Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Calif., wants to prohibit marijuana testing for job applicants in states where marijuana is legal.
On Wednesday, a similar debate is poised to take place in the Rules Committee over the agriculture, rural development and Food and Drug Administration funding bill, with a familiar set of culture war issues at play.
McCarthy has vowed to pass appropriations bills individually and not combine them into one, as Congress has done in recent years.
The Senate, meanwhile, is taking a bipartisan path and avoiding contentious provisions as it advances appropriations bills, drawing objections from conservative House Republicans.
After this week, the House and the Senate are scheduled to break for a monthlong August recess, setting up a busy September.
"The current trajectory we’re on is unsustainable," said Ogles, the Tennessee congressman. "And we owe it to the American people to make cuts. Otherwise, like the Titanic, this will end in catastrophe."
