Sen. Mitch McConnell has been in the hospital since June 14 for undisclosed reasons, and his continued absence from the Senate could further complicate an ongoing fight over defense spending and Congress’s annual spending bills.
As Politico and The Washington Post reported this week, the 84-year-old McConnell’s hospitalization comes at a time when the annual appropriations process has gotten bogged down in the Senate. Democrats and Republicans are clashing over the Trump administration’s push to boost defense spending to an unprecedented $1.5 trillion.
The top Senate appropriators, Republican Susan Collins and Democrat Patty Murray, have worked closely together on annual spending plans in past years, but they’re at loggerheads this year over funding levels, including GOP plans for a $1.15 trillion budget for the military and another $350 billion that Republicans want to deliver via a third party-line budget reconciliation bill.
“Democrats have refused to support the increase in defense funding Republicans have put forward without a comparable boost for domestic programs,” the Post’s Jarrell Dillard and Noah Robertson write today. “That disagreement is part of the reason the committee, which normally advances these measures on a bipartisan basis, has not yet advanced any legislation for fiscal 2027.”
Appropriators also face disagreements over an $87.6 billion supplemental funding request from the White House, including $67.1 billion related to the Iran war.
Against that backdrop, McConnell’s absence could further hamper the Senate’s ability to push forward on spending bills. The veteran Kentucky senator sits on the Appropriations Committee and heads that panel’s defense subcommittee, which oversees military funding.
“If the two sides can’t come to an agreement, Republicans will probably need McConnell’s support to advance any spending bills out of the committee amid Democratic opposition,” Dillard and Robertson note.
Without McConnell, the 15-14 GOP edge on the committee turns into a 14-14 split that allows Democrats to prevent spending bills from advancing as they insist on first reaching a deal on overall spending levels.
Collins, who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, already had to postpone the scheduled June markups of several appropriations bills due to the standoff over defense spending. McConnell’s absence forced another delay late last month.
McConnell’s absence could also present an additional obstacle for Republicans if they do try to pass a long-shot reconciliation bill. Without McConnell, Senate Republicans could only afford to lose two of their members as they try to clear a 50-vote threshold.
McConnell has challenged the wisdom of funding critical defense priorities via a reconciliation bill rather than the usual bipartisan appropriations process. He has also expressed serious doubts that a third party-line bill will happen. “I think it's safe to conclude there will not be another reconciliation bill, so it's really not an option," McConnell said at a Senate Appropriations hearing a month ago. But as a defense hawk, he would be expected to help such a funding package pass.
The bottom line: This year’s appropriations process has been bogged down by deep partisan differences over spending levels and, undoubtedly, by political calculations about how congressional control and leverage over funding decisions might change after the November elections. When Congress returns next week from its recess, lawmakers will have precious little time to agree on annual spending bills — or at least a stopgap measure to avoid a potential government shutdown that would occur when current funding expires at the end of September.