House Freedom Caucus has a list of demands if Congress wants to avoid a government shutdown

Gitanjali Poonia
·3 min read
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Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., speaks in front of members of the House Freedom Caucus during a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, Friday, July 14, 2023. House conservatives in a group known as the Freedom Caucus have unveiled a list of demands they want included in a stopgap spending measure to keep the federal government running after the end of September.

Congress is in recess this month but is set to reconvene in less than two weeks. When lawmakers come back, they will have a month to pass 12 spending bills to avoid a government shutdown.

If lawmakers can’t pass the appropriations bills before Sept. 30, when government funding expires, then Congress would have to pass short-term extensions through a continuing resolution to keep the federal government running.

But the House Freedom Caucus, a group of conservatives, is hoping to “rein in reckless spending.”

In a statement, the group said it would “refuse to support any such 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.”

Sen. Mike Lee of Utah chimed in on X, formerly known as Twitter, saying, “A series of short-term continuing resolutions serves Washington, not the American people.”

In another post, Lee, a Republican, said that the country “can’t afford kicking this can down the road any longer.”

Last week, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told the House Republican conference during a members-only call that Congress would need to pass a stopgap funding bill, as The Washington Post reported.

Since then, the Freedom Caucus has countered with a list of demands that its members want fulfilled to pass any short-term spending bills and avoid a shutdown, creating a roadblock for McCarthy.

They asked for 2024 spending levels to match the fiscal year 2022 topline level of $1.471 trillion, instead of $1.5 trillion, as negotiated for fiscal year 2023.

The group of conservatives also want the spending bills to include the House-passed Secure the Border Act of 2023, which imposes limits on asylum eligibility and provides more enforcement for border management.

Although the White House has also requested $4 billion in funding for border security, it's not nearly as much as Republicans are asking for, as Punchbowl News reported.

The demands include addressing the “weaponization of the Justice Department and FBI” and ending “the left’s cancerous woke policies in the Pentagon undermining our military’s core warfighting mission.”

The GOP lawmakers said they will not support any “blank checks” for Ukraine, meanwhile, the White House requested $25 billion in supplemental funding to support Kyiv.

“We will oppose any attempt by Washington to revert to its old playbook of using a series of short-term funding extensions designed to push Congress up against a December deadline to force the passage of yet another monstrous, budget busting, pork filled, lobbyist handout omnibus spending bill at year’s end and we will use every procedural tool necessary to prevent that outcome,” the Freedom Caucus said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., wrote on X that GOP lawmakers “are determined to shut down the government and crash our economy.”

Democrats in the Senate also seem willing to pass a short-term spending bill, as Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told reporters, according to The Associated Press.

“We hope that our House Republicans will realize that any funding resolution has to be bipartisan or they will risk shutting down the government,” he said.