Freedom Caucus puts ultimatum on likely short-term spending bill

The House Freedom Caucus said Monday that its members will vote against any “clean” short-term spending bill.

This places a tougher task on House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to keep the government open before the fiscal year, and thus authorized funding, ends next month.

The conservative group gave the ultimatum on the impending government shutdown deadline, saying it would oppose any spending measure that fails to address security at the southern border, the weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI, and woke policies in the Pentagon.

The Caucus said in a statement that its will not support “any measure that continues Democrats’ bloated COVID-era spending and simultaneously fails to force the Biden Administration to follow the law and fulfill its most basic responsibilities.”

Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, have told reporters that a stopgap budget measure would be needed this year.

Such a measure would keep government offices running past the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year at their previous levels of funding, without having passed appropriations bills. It is a typical strategy to provide time for the Republican-held House and Democrat-held Senate try to figure out a long-term agreement.

The government’s new fiscal year begins Oct. 1, when funding approval is needed to avert closures of federal offices.

But this year, the task may prove more politically difficult in the face of opposition from the 40-odd-member Freedom Caucus or any significant share of it.

Mr. McCarthy, who can only afford to lose four Republican votes, will need to convince his party colleagues or cut a deal with House Democrats and risk further political blowback from the right.

Lawmakers are still debating and legislating the 12 annual appropriations bills, and the Freedom Caucus says these bills are the appropriate vehicle to pass conservative priorities.

“As Congress continues to work to pass appropriations bills, we must rein in the reckless inflationary spending and the out-of-control federal bureaucracy it funds, crushing the American people,” the Caucus said in Monday’s statement.

“We remain committed to restoring the true FY 2022 topline spending level of $1.471 trillion without the use of gimmicks or reallocated rescissions to return the bureaucracy to its pre-COVID size while allowing for adequate defense funding.”

Additionally, the Caucus said it will oppose any “blank check for Ukraine in any supplemental appropriations bill.”

The Freedom Caucus also warned that a gigantic year-end omnibus-spending bill, when all 12 spending bills are wrapped up into one package, would be unacceptable, and its members would “use every procedural tool necessary to prevent that outcome.”

Mr. McCarthy has already promised his conference that there would be no omnibus package, but Congress may pass the appropriation bills in divided groups as smaller spending bills.