Senate unveils stopgap funding bill to keep government open past midterms

Today’s Focus

Senate appropriators unveiled a short-term spending bill Sunday that would fund the federal government at current levels through Dec. 11, aiming to avert a shutdown when the fiscal year ends Sept. 30, according to the Associated Press reporting carried by PBS NewsHour.

The measure sets up an initial procedural vote Monday night, The Hill reported, with Senate leaders hoping to pass it before the chamber leaves Washington at week’s end for the August recess.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) said clearing the bill was his top priority before recess, citing two record-breaking shutdowns in recent years, PBS reported. The late-summer timing is unusual; Congress typically waits until the final hours before a funding deadline to act.

The Senate version differs from a similar bill already passed by the House. Democrats said they blocked a $1 billion White House request to build what the administration calls “Trump-class” battleships, and inserted language preventing the administration from transferring money out of other programs into Border Patrol accounts, according to PBS.

Politico reported that the Senate text also blocks a Trump administration plan to overhaul how federal science grants are awarded, a proposal that would have given the White House broader authority over funding decisions currently handled by agencies such as the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health.

The Washington Post reported that senators from both parties resisted the grant restructuring, viewing it as an executive branch encroachment on appropriated funds. Roll Call reported that negotiations dragged through the weekend over which White House exceptions to include and which to strip out before the bill was finalized.

If the Senate passes the measure this week, the House would still need to approve the amended version before Sept. 30 to avoid a lapse in funding.

The Debate

Supporters argue

Thune framed the bill as basic governance, telling colleagues the country cannot afford another shutdown during campaign season, PBS reported. Backers say a clean continuing resolution at current levels buys time for full-year appropriations negotiations without disrupting federal services, military pay, or benefit checks.

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-ME) and Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) have argued in past continuing-resolution fights that stopgaps preserve Congress’s constitutional role over spending, a point Murray reiterated in floor remarks quoted by Politico: “Congress writes the checks, not the White House.”

Republican appropriators say holding funding flat is a compromise Democrats should accept, since it forgoes new spending increases. Democrats say the bill protects programs the White House sought to cut or repurpose, including scientific research grants and domestic accounts that the administration wanted to redirect toward border enforcement, per The Washington Post.

Editorial support has come from centrist voices arguing that a December deadline gives negotiators a realistic runway to finish fiscal 2026 bills after the midterms without a mid-campaign crisis.

Critics argue

Fiscal conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus have criticized continuing resolutions as a failure of the appropriations process, arguing they lock in what members call bloated Biden-era spending levels. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has repeatedly said stopgaps “reward dysfunction,” a position Roll Call noted remains a hurdle for the House to swallow the Senate’s changes.

White House allies are unhappy that the Senate bill strips the $1 billion battleship request and the grant restructuring, Politico reported. Administration officials have argued the grant overhaul is needed to root out what they call ideological bias in federally funded research.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, say the bill concedes too much by extending Trump-era funding levels without securing firmer guardrails on immigration enforcement or Ukraine assistance. Progressive members have argued in prior CR fights that flat funding amounts to a real-terms cut once inflation is factored in.

Both flanks agree on one point: a December cliff simply pushes the same fight into the lame-duck period, when leverage shifts and policy riders often multiply.

What the experts say

The Congressional Budget Office has documented that continuing resolutions carry measurable costs. A 2018 CBO analysis found that repeated short-term funding extensions delay contracts, increase agency administrative burdens, and reduce the efficiency of federal procurement.

The Government Accountability Office reported in 2023 that agencies operating under CRs typically freeze hiring, postpone new programs, and issue shorter contracts, driving up per-unit costs. GAO identified the Department of Defense and NIH as among the most affected.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a nonpartisan fiscal watchdog, has tracked 48 continuing resolutions since fiscal year 2010, noting that Congress has not passed all 12 appropriations bills on time in nearly three decades.

On the grant-overhaul dispute, Brookings Institution scholar Molly Reynolds has written that congressional pushback on executive reprogramming of appropriated funds is a recurring institutional flashpoint, regardless of which party holds the White House. The core legal question, she notes, is whether the Impoundment Control Act of 1974 constrains the executive’s ability to redirect money Congress has already allocated.

By the Numbers

Dec. 11: the date through which the Senate continuing resolution would fund federal agencies, according to PBS NewsHour.

$1 billion: the amount the Senate bill excludes for the White House’s requested “Trump-class” battleship program, per PBS.

Sept. 30: the end of fiscal year 2026 and the shutdown deadline the bill is designed to avert, per The Hill.

48: the number of continuing resolutions Congress has enacted since fiscal year 2010, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

2: the number of record-length shutdowns Thune cited in urging passage, per PBS.

1974: the year the Impoundment Control Act was enacted, the law at the center of the grant-overhaul dispute, per Brookings.