Congress leaves town without passing DC budget fix

Congress left town this week without passing legislation to prevent significant budget cuts for Washington, as the measure faces staunch opposition from some conservatives. 

While the measure swiftly passed the Senate last month, it has sputtered in the GOP-led House, even as President Trump has publicly called for its passage.

As lawmakers prepared to leave for recess Thursday, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said the bill had been placed on the back burner as GOP leadership in both chambers worked to adopt a budget resolution to advance the president’s sweeping tax priorities.   

“That’s still been a discussion, and we want to get that done as soon as we can,” he told The Hill. “We’re having conversations with D.C., with the president and the Senate and so we’re going to get there.”

But when asked whether the bill would need to be sent to the Senate to approve potential changes, Scalise said he was unsure. 

The holdup in the House comes as GOP leaders has been facing pressure from their right flank to attach potential riders and requirements the Democratic-led District would need to meet to spend its local dollars.

D.C. officials began sounding the alarm about the threat of cuts as Congress moved to pass legislation last month to keep the federal government open and funded through September.  

Unlike previous stopgap funding bills, the latest was missing language allowing D.C. to spend its local budget — which consists mostly of funds from local tax dollars, fees and fines — at already approved 2025 levels. D.C. was granted what’s known as “home rule” in the 1970s, but its budget is still approved by Congress.

Without that language in the bill, D.C. was treated like a federal agency and forced to revert to 2024 spending levels, which city officials said would result in them being forced to cut $1 billion in the last half of the fiscal year.

The Senate approved a fix to prevent those cuts shortly after the federal funding stopgap's passage.

“This bill would simply fix a mistake in the House [continuing resolution] that prevents the District of Columbia from spending its own tax dollars as part of its budget, which Congress routinely approves,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) said of the measure at the time.

Trump also called for the GOP-controlled House to “immediately” take up the D.C. budget bill, even as he ramps up efforts to exert control over the District’s affairs.  

However, Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has also faced pressure from his right flank to delay consideration of the bill as conservatives have floated requirements for the District. Some Republicans have also questioned the severity of the potential cuts D.C. faces.

“We should get the budget resolution agreed to before we take up an issue like whether or not, D.C. should be able to spend that billion dollars on whatever crazy stuff they want to spend it on,” House Freedom Caucus Chair Andy Harris (R-Md.) told The Hill last month.

Harris said conservatives “need a little while to come up with a list of what requirements we should put on D.C.,” but he hit the District for spending “dollars in ways that in the past we thought were pretty foolish.”

House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said earlier this month there was debate over “the normal restrictions to D.C. funding on things like abortion” and whether those needed to be added to the bill. 

“There's a debate between people that know more than me about the law as to whether or not we need to add language to it. I'll let that get sorted out in committee,” he said then. “But I'm for the money being restored, but I'm also for the restrictions staying in place.”

When asked about potential changes to the bill, House Oversight Committee Chair James Comer (R-Ky.), whose committee has jurisdiction over D.C., said Wednesday that he’s “just waiting to hear from leadership.”

“The White House has signaled that they want to support it. I've said we need to support it. I've been vocal about that,” he said. 

“I don't know if they’ve got some kind of plan to stick it on another bill or what. I have no idea,” he said, while deferring to Johnson and Scalise. 

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told The Hill this week the bill needs to “pass as is in the form that came over from the Senate to the House.”

“Donald Trump has directed them to do it, and usually, they traditionally fall in line, and we're pressing Johnson,” he said before the House left for its two-week recess. 

In a post urging the House to pass the measure, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) wrote on X on Thursday that Trump and Johnson “must act” to avoid the potential $1 billion in cuts.

“These are our local dollars — not a penny in federal savings. Cuts that would impact DC police overtime, firefighters, and programs for our kids,” she wrote. “Cuts that would also impact national special security events. The House should not recess until this bill is passed.”

A recent report from Axios also indicated that the District is making plans to begin implementing the cuts after lawmakers headed home. A source familiar told The Hill on Friday that the District is “preparing for all eventualities.”

Bowser’s office has warned that local public safety, education, and essential services will be at risk if the cuts are made. The office also said “immediate and unanticipated layoffs of direct service workers” would take effect if D.C. is forced to make such a cut, as well as the “elimination of direct services residents and visitors rely on.”

In a statement to The Hill on Friday, Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called it “disappointing and exasperating that the House continues to delay voting on the Senate-passed bill to allow D.C.’s to spend its own local funds at its own locally enacted levels like other local jurisdictions across the country do, particularly now that the House has left for a full two-week recess.

“Members opposing the D.C. budget fix bill were not elected by D.C. residents, they are not familiar with the needs of the 700,000 people who live here, and they have no accountability to the District because D.C. residents can't vote them out of office,” she continued, adding that the ongoing ordeal “only helps to highlight the need for D.C. statehood.”