U.S. House Needs to Pass the FY 2025 Continuing Resolution

Today, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on a bill to keep the government operating for the remainder of the fiscal year (that is, through September 2025). The form this takes is a "continuing resolution," which means (with a few exceptions) the spending levels will be about the same as in FY 2024.

This only impacts about 25% of federal spending, the annual appropriations known as "discretionary spending." The other 75% of federal spending, which is the main driver of the federal government's over-spending problem, is not impacted--Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, food stamps, agriculture payments, veterans, federal employee benefits, and net interest on the national debt. Those items are generally reserved for budget reconciliation bills, like the one Congress is also figuring out at the moment.

The reason for passing this continuing resolution into law are three-fold.

First, this is not the fight we need to be having right now. The big fight this year is on the budget reconciliation bill Congress is considering. That bill will prevent over $4.5 trillion of tax increases over the next decade from starting next January. And the House budget calls for up to $2 trillion in reductions in the growth of spending over the next decade. We need every ounce of political capital to pass this much more important legislation. A costly and ultimately pointless fight over discretionary spending in the middle of the fiscal year would be foolish.

Second, this iteration of the continuing resolution is the best possible version conservatives can expect to see. It's a version intended to pass the House with only Republican votes, and then jam the Senate, forcing Senate Democrats to swallow the bill or be blamed for shutting down the government. If the House fails to pass this bill, the alternative will be a bipartisan continuing resolution to keep the government open, which will mean concessions to House Democrats in exchange for their votes. This is as good as it gets.

Third and finally, House Republicans should vote for this continuing resolution because we have a tax cut to pass. We don't have the political capital to pass tax reform this year if we fall of the ditch now and get in a messy CR fight. Keeping taxes from going up on middle class families and small businesses is too important to endanger for this relatively meaningless legislative exercise. Get it done and move onto the important stuff.