Congress cleared a short-term funding bill to keep the government open through Dec. 11, but the real fight over a $1.5 trillion military budget and 12 unfinished spending bills now waits until after voters go to the polls on Nov. 3.
The House voted 370, 48 on Tuesday to pass a continuing resolution that holds federal spending at current levels, removing the threat of a government shutdown at the end of September. The Senate had already approved the same measure, and President Trump is expected to sign it. The bipartisan margin was lopsided, but the ease of the vote masked a deeper stalemate: none of the 12 annual appropriations bills that actually fund the government has reached the president's desk, and neither party expects that to change before Election Day.
House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, the Oklahoma Republican who steered the stopgap to the floor, told NBC News he wants to finish all 12 bills before the calendar year ends, but conceded the midterms will reshape every calculation in Washington.
"We will act like we can come back and things will be exactly the way they were when we left. They won't be. Everybody's calculations will change. Everybody's point of view will change. It'll have an enormous impact about what happens for the balance of the year."
That candor is rare in a Congress that has spent months unable to agree on how much to spend or where to spend it. Republicans control both chambers and the White House, yet funding the government still requires 60 Senate votes to clear a filibuster, which means Democrats hold a veto over any full-year deal.
Cole did not treat the impasse as a simple policy disagreement. He accused Democrats of deliberately stalling full-year funding negotiations to weaken Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the Republican who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee. Collins is described as politically vulnerable heading into the midterms, and Cole's charge amounts to this: Democrats would rather let spending bills rot than hand Collins a bipartisan achievement she could take home to voters.
The accusation fits a pattern. Earlier this summer, the Senate adjourned for its summer recess without passing major legislation the White House wanted, leaving Trump's priorities stalled and the calendar shrinking.
Whether Cole's claim is fair depends on facts he did not produce publicly. He named no specific Democrats and offered no documentary evidence of a coordinated strategy to sideline Collins. The allegation is a single-source charge from a partisan actor, worth noting, not worth treating as settled.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, pushed back on the idea that her party is running out the clock. She said finishing the spending bills before the new fiscal year begins in 2027 is a bipartisan goal.
"The midterm election will have an effect, but the goal is that we need to pass appropriations bills before the end of the year. That is a bipartisan view of where we need to go with the committee, and so that's what we are going to press for."
DeLauro added a two-word summary of her position: "Let's get to the finish line." She also said she hopes to become Appropriations chair if Democrats win the House, a remark that undercuts her own claim of bipartisan urgency. If DeLauro is already measuring the drapes on Cole's office, the incentive to hand Republicans a funding victory before November drops close to zero.
That tension has defined Washington's spending fights for months. Trump pressured Senate leadership over the summer to cancel recess and force votes on his priorities, but the effort failed to produce results before lawmakers left town.
The biggest policy gap between the two parties is defense spending. Trump has called for a $1.5 trillion military budget, a massive increase over the current year's $1 trillion allocation, which itself set a new high-water mark. Democrats have rejected that number, and without 60 Senate votes, it cannot move.
The continuing resolution sidesteps the dispute entirely. By freezing spending at current levels, it avoids forcing either side to accept the other's number. That is the whole point of a stopgap, and the whole problem. Continuing resolutions do not fund new programs, adjust for inflation, or reflect shifting national-security needs. They keep the lights on while the people responsible for budgeting refuse to do their jobs.
The stall has broader roots. All 100 senators left Washington for summer recess without resolving key legislative items, a move that compressed the fall calendar and made a stopgap almost inevitable.
The stopgap buys 11 weeks. When it expires on Dec. 11, Congress will be in a lame-duck session, the awkward stretch after an election when outgoing members still hold votes and incoming members have no power yet. Cole acknowledged that the midterm results will reshape the politics of every spending decision.
If Republicans hold both chambers, they will have leverage to push Trump's defense number and attach policy riders Democrats oppose. If Democrats flip the House, the incentive to cut a deal in the lame duck drops sharply, why negotiate now when you can set the terms in January?
Cole framed the election's effect bluntly, saying it "has a tremendous impact" on what happens next. He is right. The 370, 48 vote was easy precisely because it decided nothing. The hard votes, on defense, on domestic spending, on the dozen bills that actually set federal priorities, are still ahead.
Earlier this year, Sen. Rick Scott pressed his Republican colleagues to act on spending legislation before a shutdown became a real threat. That urgency produced talk but not results, and the continuing resolution is the predictable consequence.
Meanwhile, some in the GOP explored alternative legislative paths to bypass the 60-vote filibuster threshold, but those efforts have not resolved the underlying spending deadlock.
The lopsided margin makes the vote look like Washington working. It is the opposite. A 370, 48 tally means almost everyone agreed to punt. No one had to defend a priority, sacrifice a talking point, or accept a number they did not like. The continuing resolution is a permission slip to campaign instead of govern.
Republicans own both chambers and the White House. Democrats hold the filibuster. Neither side has been willing to make the concessions a full-year deal requires. The result is a government funded on autopilot, a military budget frozen below the president's request, and a December deadline that will arrive in the middle of a lame-duck session shaped by an election no one can predict.
Voters go to the polls on Nov. 3 to choose the people who will make these decisions. They deserve to know that the people already in office chose not to.