Republicans are divided on Biden-era spending levels as the clock ticks.

Congress is running out of time to avoid another budget crisis amid the current government shutdown impasse — and that leaves Republicans with few options other than trying to increase federal spending levels that existed under former President Joe Biden.

But the debate over how long to extend those levels is already dividing Republican lawmakers, pointing to a potentially messy fight on the horizon even before the current budget impasse ends.

Asked whether Republicans should consider another expansion of the most recent federal spending levels — which have remained virtually unchanged since fiscal 2024, the last year President Joe Biden was in office — House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., told Fox News Digital: “I think we’ll have to do it, after wasting so much time.”

It’s been about a year and a half since Congress fulfilled its duty to pass an annual federal budget, and decades since it did so via 12 single-subject appropriations bills — a prized goal of Republican lawmakers.

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Senate Majority Leader John Thune holds a copy of a continuing resolution bill as he speaks alongside House Speaker Mike Johnson during a news conference at Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, October 3, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

“What would it be, year three of Biden’s latest budget?” Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, a ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, joked to reporters Wednesday.

Republican-controlled Washington had hoped to pass a conservative budget for fiscal year 2026. To do so, Republicans are pushing for an extension of current federal funding levels through Nov. 21, called a continuing resolution (CR), aimed at giving lawmakers more time to reach a longer-term deal.

But this bill has been blocked in the Senate since September 19. Democrats are demanding that any spending deal be coupled with an extension of COVID-19 pandemic-era Obamacare subsidies, which expire at the end of this year, a demand that has been rejected by Republican leaders.

“We put the date in weeks ago when we passed a bill over a month ago in the House, because that’s what Republican and Democratic supporters agreed on,” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., told Fox News Digital on Wednesday. “Well, the Democrats have used up most of that time. So we know at some point we’re going to need a later date, and we don’t want that to be blocked by a holiday.”

Two House GOP sources told Fox News Digital that several options have emerged, including another CR extending through January and a measure that could last through the fiscal year until next September 30.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole said he would prefer another CR in January, so his committee can do its job. (Getty Images)

Conservatives in the House Freedom Caucus and their allies are pushing for the latter option, believing it is the best solution to keeping federal spending levels low. The alternative, a bipartisan deal, would require support from Democrats in the Senate and would therefore result in increased spending levels.

“If we can have long-term CR, so that we have guaranteed funding at current levels when we have Donald Trump and (Office of Management Budget Director) Russ Vought and strong executive leadership using taxpayer funds wisely, then that’s a good position to be in,” Chip Roy, R-Texas, political chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, told Fox News Digital.

A source close to the House Freedom Caucus told Fox News Digital that its chairman, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., would even support a CR through December 2026, but with the caveat that he would need to see what the actual details were.

That would delay another battle over the blockade until after the midterm elections. And the source said Harris believed it would prevent threats against essential workers and military pay for more than a year.

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But Cole said House holders would support an extension until January.

“I think there’s actually, among those who have taken ownership of the issue, a heightened sense of urgency because we don’t want a resolution that lasts a year,” he said. “It’s not a good thing… I talk to my Democratic counterparts about it, I know it’s not what they want to do.”

Meanwhile, in the Upper House, where Senate Democrats have rejected the Nov. 21 CR nearly a dozen times, Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., suggested that a new long-term measure may be inevitable.

Rep. Chip Roy sits next to Rep. Ralph Norman as he listens during a House Rules Committee meeting on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, May 21, 2025. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

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“Obviously, now that time has lost several weeks on CR, we’re moving further and further into the season where we’re going to have to at least do an extension, if not something much longer term, to fund the government,” Thune told reporters.

Other Republican senators also signaled that another extension was inevitable.

“I would like to see it extended through January and February. I think ultimately we spend less money (with a) CR. And again, that’s my main goal here,” said Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan.

But Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told reporters: “I agree with a one-year CR. I’m fine with that. I mean the original CR was supposed to take us to Nov. 21 and that’s only a few weeks away. This shutdown could last until then.”