Speaker Johnson plows ahead with Trump-backed spending deal

House Speaker Mike Johnson has announced a yearlong government funding extension that sweetens the deal for Republicans in both chambers of Congress by cutting agencies and boosting defense spending.

The stopgap bill would dispense with the regular appropriations process for the current fiscal year and keep Republicans on track to pass President Trump’s agenda.

Mr. Trump said that “under the circumstances,” congressional Republicans created a “very good funding bill” that everyone in the party should support.

“Great things are coming for America, and I am asking you all to give us a few months to get us through to September so we can continue to put the Country’s ‘financial house’ in order,” the president said on social media. “Democrats will do anything they can to shut down our Government, and we can’t let that happen.”

The funding extension, known on Capitol Hill as a continuing resolution, would keep the government open until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30.

Congress has until Friday to pass a spending bill to avert a partial government shutdown.

Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, plans to put the bill to a vote by Tuesday. The House will have a short week because Democrats will be in Virginia starting Wednesday for a policy conference.

Mr. Trump has been a powerful force for uniting the often factious House Republicans, but some hesitate to support the stopgap measure.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, Pennsylvania Republican and co-chairman of the moderate Problem Solvers Caucus, said he was still considering the plan.

“We’re still digging through it. Like most bills, there’s some good in there, [and] there’s some not so good in there,” Mr. Fitzpatrick said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.” “It remains to be seen whether the votes are there or not, but I think we’re really going to be learning, over the next 24 hours, what’s in it and what’s not in it.”

House Republican leadership aides described the 99-page bill, much longer than a typical stopgap, as “quite literally as clean a CR that you can draft for these purposes” and spend less than the fiscal 2024 cycle.

“There’s no Christmas tree effect here,” a leadership aide said in a call with reporters. “It’s just what we need to fund the government.”

The stopgap extends spending levels set by the last Congress and President Biden and makes several adjustments to please Republicans.

It includes an additional $6 billion for veterans’ health care, more than $9 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a freeze on $20 billion of IRS funds.

The deal drops nondefense spending by $13 billion. At least 22 instances in the measure zeroed out funding for programs in assorted agencies, including the departments of Health and Human Services, Energy and Labor.

Both defense and nondefense spending fell below the spending caps set by the Fiscal Reduction Act. Defense spending was more than $892 billion, and nondefense spending was $708 billion. Republicans found some spending reductions by leaving out community project funding, known as earmarks.

Defense spending routinely accounted for the majority of congressionally approved spending, and the latest continuing resolution continues that trend despite Republicans’ calls for deeper cuts across the board.

The added military spending will please Republican defense hawks, particularly in the Senate.

The continuing resolution includes an $8 billion increase in defense spending from last year. That will likely satisfy defense hawks concerned that keeping funding levels flat would erode military readiness.

The bump keeps America as the leader in global defense spending, far outpacing China and Russia. The U.S. spends more on the military than the rest of the world combined.

Defense accounts for 13% of federal spending, ranking third behind mandatory spending on health care coverage such as Medicare (24%) and Social Security (21%), according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

The funding extension is on a collision course with House Democrats.

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, called the measure a “power grab” by the White House and Elon Musk, who leads the Department of Government Efficiency.

“By essentially closing the book on negotiations for full-year funding bills that help the middle class and protect our national security, my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have handed their power to an unelected billionaire,” she said.

Democrats are usually crucial for funding extensions, but Mr. Johnson may not need them this time despite his razor-thin majority.

Even Republican fiscal hawks in the House Freedom Caucus, who rarely vote for a continuing resolution, have signaled that they would support the measure because they don’t want to hinder the president’s agenda.

Moving through the Senate could be a challenge. To survive a filibuster, the bill will need Democratic votes to clear the chamber’s 60-vote threshold.

Sen. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican who routinely opposes funding measures because they don’t cut enough, said he would object to this one, too.

At least eight Democrats must vote for the bill to clear the filibuster hurdle.

Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee, criticized the measure for not including language restricting White House decision-making on whether to spend congressionally appropriated funds.

“Congress, not Trump or Musk, should decide through careful bipartisan negotiations how to invest in our states and districts and whether critical programs that support students, veterans’ families and patients get funded or not,” Ms. Murray said.

Still, Senate Democrats would risk political damage if they are responsible for a government shutdown.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan M. Collins, a Maine Republican who preferred not to run with a full-year stopgap bill, appeared to back the measure.

She said the main focus should be “preventing an unnecessary and costly government shutdown.”

“Government shutdowns are inherently a failure to govern effectively and have negative consequences all across the government,” she said.

• Seth McLaughlin contributed to this report.