House passes final fiscal ‘26 spending bills, leaving Senate to act before Jan. 30 deadline

The House passed the final four of the 12 annual spending bills on Thursday, leaving only the Senate left to act to prevent another government shutdown after the record-breaking funding lapse that kicked off the fiscal year. 

The deadline is Jan. 30, and Congress is on track to meet it without the usual drama that comes with a funding deadline. 

“This is a monumental achievement,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, Louisiana Republican, said at a press conference with GOP appropriators where they all signed a poster that celebrated “12 of 12 appropriations bills” passed.

“Despite the noise, despite our slim margins, despite the fact that most members in the House have never gone through a regular, member-driven appropriations process before this team got it done,” he said.

House Appropriations Chairman Tom Cole, Oklahoma Republican, thanked Mr. Johnson for allowing the committee to lead spending negotiations, instead of leadership, as has been done in past years. 

Republicans touted that the fiscal 2026 appropriations bills were passed in smaller packages, rather than one massive omnibus measure, and collectively spend less than than the previous fiscal year, which was a full-year stopgap measure mostly continuing Biden administration spending levels and policies. 

“We committed to codifying DOGE cuts, and these bills cut waste and rein in government bloat,” Mr. Cole said. “And we promised to deliver on America’s agenda, which is why we put President Trump’s priorities in place and end Biden-era mandates.”

Democrats still supported most of the bills in large numbers because they scored some funding increases for party priority programs and staved off many cuts Mr. Trump requested. 

“This package rejects efforts to dismantle the Department of Education, shores up our support for European security, and increases funding for medical research and early childhood education,” Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democratic appropriator, said of the measures that passed Thursday. “It invests in affordable housing – providing relief to families feeling the squeeze from the cost-of-living crisis.” 

The $1.6 trillion annual discretionary budget is not distributed evenly across the 12 bills. The remaining six bills that the Senate needs to clear before the deadline carry the bulk of the funding. 

The first three were signed into law in November as part of a deal to end the 43-day shutdown, and another three that the Senate passed last week are awaiting President Trump’s signature. 

The Senate is in recess this week so has yet to take up two bills that the House passed last week funding the departments of Treasury and State, foreign aid programs, financial services agencies, the White House and the District of Columbia.

The House used a procedural mechanism to tie those two bills to the four it passed on Thursday, so the Senate will receive it as a six-bill package. That will allow the Senate to move the bills more quickly given under their rules, which allow for days of delay when any member has an objection that needs to be overridden. 

The last four spending bills the House passed collectively total $1.2 trillion. They fund the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, Transportation and Housing and Urban Development.

The final vote on the package was 341-88. 

To earn a big bipartisan showing, GOP leaders agreed to give Democrats an initial separate vote on the Department of Homeland of Security funding bill.

That 220-207 vote was much more partisan, with all but seven Democrats voting against it because of their opposition to funding ICE without more guardrails to protect against inappropriate uses of force and operations targeting American citizens.