Today, Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher (TX-07) voted against House Republicans’ partisan spending bill for Fiscal Year 2025, which reduces funding for critical government programs and projects that people in Texas’ Seventh Congressional District rely on, including at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. 

“At a time when people across Texas’ Seventh Congressional District are concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts to government programs they depend on, this spending bill makes things worse,” said Congresswoman Lizzie Fletcher.  “It gives Elon Musk and President Trump an unprecedented level of discretion to make even more disastrous spending cuts to health care, infrastructure, public safety, and more.  Rather than work in good faith with House Democrats to fund our government in a responsible manner on a sustained basis, House Republicans have put forward a bill that cedes the authority of Congress and undermines the checks and balances that are necessary to our democratic system.  For these reasons, I voted no on this bill today.”

Specifically, the House Republican government spending bill, H.R. 1968:

• Cuts $280 million in funding for the NIH, jeopardizing jobs and medical research conducted in Houston related to cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, and more;
• Cuts Army Corps of Engineers construction projects by $1.4 billion or 44 percent, which could include the Buffalo Bayou Tributaries Resiliency Study and the Houston Ship Channel Expansion (Project 11); 
• Strips Congress of the authority to determine Army Corps project funding levels and grants the administration discretion to fund projects; 
• Fails to include funding for the Disaster Relief Fund, which is already in need of additional funding to assist with future disasters; and
• Cuts $40 million in election security grants despite House Republicans falsely claiming for years about stolen elections and voter fraud.