FY 2025 December CR and Offset

This evening two bills were added to the Congress.gov Bills This Week web page:

Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025, and

Disaster Offset and Government Efficiency Act

They will be included in the list of bills introduced today (to be published tomorrow morning).

The first bill, offered by Rep Cole (R,OK), could fairly be called the Omnibus Continuing Resolution. In addition to amending The Continuing Appropriations Act, 2025 (PL 118-47) and extending current spending until March 14, 2025 {§101(2)}, the bill provides additional spending for specific programs and includes a number of policy changes, updates, and reauthorizations. Unfortunately, it does not provide a reauthorization for the CFATS program. More details later.

The second bill, offered by Rep Roy (R,TX) would partially offset some of the new spending provided in the CR by amending 2 USC 901(c)(10)(B) changing the non-security discretionary spending limit for FY 2025 from $710,688,000,000 to $597,000,000,000 (- $113.688,000,000 – a 16% reduction). It would also remove an unspecified dollar amount of ‘unobligated funds made available by section 101(e) of the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (Public Law 118–5 [link added]) for the Department of Commerce Nonrecurring Expenses Fund’.

There is nothing in tomorrow’s House Schedule concerning these two bills beyond the vague “Additional legislative items are possible.” House rules require 72 hours between publication of the bill and a vote, but rules can be waived. Ideally (from the perspective of a Friday midnight shutdown deadline) the House would take up this bill under the suspension of the rules process tomorrow and the Senate would take it up with a final vote on Friday.

There is no way that this CR would pass with strictly Republican votes, so consideration under a rule is not possible. There is enough stuff added to get the necessary super majority under the suspension of the rules process. But, all of those additions, especially (but not limited to) the new spending, are enough to really upset ('piss off' in cruder terms) Roy and the Republican fringe (and some not-so-fringe Republicans), possibly enough to endanger Rep Johnson’s election as Speaker next month. That is the reason for the offset bill, Johnson will give Roy a vote on that bill (again under the suspension process) but there is no way that that vote will get sufficient Democratic votes (and might lose some moderate Republican votes) to pass. So, it is not clear that the vote will be sufficient to ease the anger of the fringe. The first week in January 2025 could make 2023 look simple.