DOGE cuts complicate government funding talks and raise shutdown fears

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are struggling with a key question as they stare down a fast-approaching deadline to fund the government: How do they fund federal agencies that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to dismantle?

Republican leaders on Capitol Hill are struggling with a key question as they stare down a fast-approaching deadline to fund the government: How do they fund federal agencies that President Donald Trump and Elon Musk want to dismantle? Democrats insist that the bill to avoid a March 14 government shutdown fully fund all agencies and provide assurances Trump will spend congressionally appropriated dollars – the latter of which Republicans leaders say would tie Trump’s hands and is a non-starter. But Senate Majority Leader John Thune and House Speaker Mike Johnson are looking to the White House for clearer answers on how to write a spending bill that Trump would find acceptable and avoid a politically fraught shutdown in the first 100 days of full GOP control of Washington. The president expressed optimism Thursday night, declaring on his Truth Social platform, “We are working very hard with the House and Senate to pass a clean, temporary government funding Bill (‘CR’) to the end of September. Let’s get it done!” But Republicans are still uncertain whether Trump is willing to back a “clean” bill since it would still include money for the agencies he’s targeted. Johnson has suggested Republicans could codify Musk’s cuts in the upcoming funding bills, but GOP leaders of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees shot down that very idea on Thursday. Thune said congressional leaders were reviewing White House requests on certain language to include in the funding bill but was non-committal about whether it would provide money for agencies like USAID that the Trump administration is actively trying to kill.