Largest House GOP group unveils proposal to avert government shutdown amid spending chaos

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Government shutdown looms as House GOP battles over spending plans

Reps. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, join 'Hannity' to warn moderates against teaming with Democrats in spending battle.

The leader of the 175-member Republican Study Committee (RSC) unveiled a new plan aimed at averting a government shutdown and easing conservative holdouts’ concerns.

House Republicans have been in disarray over how to go about funding the government in fiscal year 2024 and how – and even if – to avoid a partial shutdown if nothing is done by Sept. 30.

Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., is proposing a plan for a 30-day stopgap funding bill known as a continuing resolution (CR) that would cut government funding by roughly $130 billion from the current fiscal year. It would also include the House GOP’s border security bill, known as H.R. 2. 

Hern’s plan, according to a one-page summary obtained by Fox News Digital, would also commit the House GOP majority to passing all 12 of its appropriations bills at the fiscal year 2022 level of $1.471 trillion, the same cut as the 30-day stopgap would mandate. 

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WASHINGTON - MAY 23: Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., leaves the House Republicans caucus meeting at the Capitol Hill Club in Washington on Tuesday, May 23, 2023. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

It comes after negotiators for the hardline-right House Freedom Caucus and the more pragmatic Main Street Caucus unveiled their own proposal for a CR, which would cut discretionary government spending by 8% from current levels and included most of H.R. 2 save for a provision on eVerify. 

But more than a dozen conservatives voiced opposition to the deal. Some said they wanted to see commitments on total spending from all 12 appropriations bills to not exceed $1.471 trillion before they would move on a CR.

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The bill narrowly passed the House Rules Committee and is planned for a vote on Thursday, though it’s not clear it will pass. Its opponents made their opposition clear on Tuesday when five lawmakers joined Democrats to tank a procedural vote on defense spending, the second time a procedural rules vote failed since November 2002.

Hern’s proposal, which would be an amendment to the existing CR bill, would in theory quell those concerns. 

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California, speaks to members of the media at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2023. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Image)

A source pointed out that the Freedom Caucus, where much of the dissent is coming from, had called for the same topline spending number in August. 

House appropriators had committed to working toward that number, but two out of 10 appropriations bills have not yet passed through committee, leaving conservatives wary that their demanded limit could still be exceeded.

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"Yeah, I would like to see it," Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday morning emerging out of a meeting between GOP leaders and CR holdouts. "Because I mean, if they agree to a topline, and then they pass everything that doesn't follow that I mean, that's worthless. That's kind of a fear."

Just one of 12 appropriations bills have passed the House. The Sept. 30 deadline for the end of the current fiscal year has prompted most lawmakers to concede a CR is needed to avoid a shutdown and give them more time to cobble those together.

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Hern’s amendment would preserve the established funding levels House Republicans have set for Veterans Affairs and the military, but seek cuts elsewhere. 

But even if it passes the House, Hern’s CR is likely to hit a wall in the Democrat-controlled Senate. Appropriators there are working toward a funding level set by Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden’s debt limit deal, roughly $120 billion higher than the new proposal.