Congress has less than two weeks to extend federal spending laws and keep the government open, but now a clash over President Donald Trump’s attempt to seize powers the Constitution delegates to lawmakers threatens to stall talks and force a shutdown.
Government shutdown looms as Trump tries to assert new spending powers
Funding will expire in less than two weeks if lawmakers don’t extend the deadline.
March 3, 2025
By Jacob Bogage The Washington Post
Trump and advisers including budget chief Russell Vought have argued that the president has the power to withhold money that Congress orders spent, arguing that a post-Watergate law that limits that power is unconstitutional. Musk’s DOGE team has been unilaterally terminating contracts and pushing to shed federal staff.
Now Democrats say they want assurances from congressional Republicans and the White House that the administration will actually spend the money included in any new law preventing a shutdown.
The current funding law expires after March 14.
“Money is just being pilfered. They’re stealing funds that are supposed to go to American families and businesses,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (Connecticut), House Democrats’ chief negotiator. “If we’re going to go through the agreement and get the topline and hammer it all out and someone comes along and upends it, that’s what we want to try to avoid.”
Trump and Musk say their cuts are aimed at rooting out waste. Congressional Republicans are broadly happy to back the administration’s position. Trump will address a joint session of Congress Tuesday night.
A senior administration official in a statement said, "President Trump and congressional Republicans are working diligently to fund the government, which has to occur on a bipartisan basis.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) told reporters last week that Democrats’ demands were a “gross separation of powers violation and a terrible precedent for Congress to engage in.”
“That’s a nonstarter for us, and the Democrats know that, so it looks like they’re in a posture right now where they’re making individual appropriations bills almost impossible,” Johnson said. “I’m really hopeful that they’ll back off those outrageous demands because it’s unprecedented and I think probably unconstitutional, and it’s not anything we’ll be a part of.”
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Oklahoma) put it more diplomatically.
“As I remind my Democratic friends,” he said, “a Republican Senate and Republican House aren’t going to limit the Republican president, particularly a president that has to sign the bill.”
But Democrats do hold significant leverage even in the minority. In the House, GOP infighting has forced Johnson — and his predecessor Kevin McCarthy (R-California) — to rely on votes from Democrats to avert previous shutdowns. It’s not clear that House Republicans could have united behind a top-line spending agreement that did not significantly slash funding, according to lawmakers and others close to negotiations, some of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), for example, threatened to vote against a GOP budget last week because his party did not have sufficient plans to cut spending for the rest of fiscal 2025, he said.
In the Senate, Republicans hold a three-seat majority, but cannot overcome the 60-vote threshold to head off a filibuster. That gives Democrats the ability to halt movement on funding bills without a suitable agreement. They say they will insist on compliance with the 1974 Impoundment Control Act, the law that the White House says is unconstitutional.
“The law exists and the law has been upheld, and as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of the conversation,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) said.
The standoff has appropriators warming to a long-term continuing resolution, or CR, which would extend federal funding at current levels through the fiscal year rather than through individual funding bills for each major department.
But even then, Democrats say a CR does not protect congressionally authorized funding from unlawful impoundments.
“He’s violating the law. He’s violating the law now and he’s going to violate the law later. It’s ultimately up to the courts to decide,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Connecticut). “Republicans are in charge. They need to find a way to keep the government open.”
Meanwhile, some Republicans are also eager to incorporate spending reductions made for the current fiscal year by Musk’s DOGE into spending bills, codifying certain layoffs and contract terminations into law.
“It would not make sense to appropriate funds to divisions of an agency that doesn’t exist anymore, right?” Johnson told Politico.
Marianna Sotomayor and Mariana Alfaro contributed to this report.