Without the extension, critical services in the transport sector will go offline. Food stamp programs may soon run short of funds. Housing assistance is at risk for millions of families. And after a week, the rest of the government's funding, including the defense and state departments, will expire unless Congress acts.
The funding bill, which the House will vote on Thursday, is designed to give lawmakers more time to finalize annual spending bills or appropriations legislation. But it must first go through an extraordinary process in the lower house, which hurts far-right Republicans who oppose the move.
Party rules say Johnson cannot bring a vote to the floor without the support of a majority of the House GOP. The last stopgap funding bill passed by the House passed the majority by just one vote. If the measure has enough Republican support, it still needs two-thirds of the chamber to pass under a process that suspends normal procedural rules.
One of the House GOP's top negotiators, Rep. Chuck Fleischman (R-Tenn.) said, “I would characterize a very tumultuous situation with the Four Corners as progress given. “When you make progress, good things happen.”
Democrats on both sides of the Capitol seemed to embrace the new short-term framework — but were none too happy about it.
“If that's what it takes to do it, let's do it. But this 'kicking it down the road' tactic really needs to stop,” said Sen. said John Tester (Mont.).
This process of government funding should be very minimal. President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed last spring to curb federal spending through the 2024 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, in exchange for suspending the debt ceiling.
But far-right lawmakers in the House were furious with McCarthy for not extracting deeper spending cuts, and they eventually ousted him as speaker. Republicans picked Johnson to replace him in late October, and the Louisianan has struggled to keep up with spending debates ever since.
In November, he led the House to pass a stopgap funding bill known as a continuing resolution, or CR, that staggered a funding deadline for the federal government by two dates.
In January, he and Schumer agreed to a $1.7 trillion funding framework, within the limits set by the debt ceiling deal, and then enacted another CR to allow the franchise enough time to negotiate individual line items.
“Congress has two chances to shut down the government. Each time a significant majority in each party said 'no,'” Rep. Tom Cole, vice chairman of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Johnson ally, said Wednesday. “We can certainly go in. [a government shutdown], but most people think that this is not a smart move. I think we can get CR. I think the speaker will have time to get these two packages.
The far-right House Freedom Caucus and a growing chorus of other conservatives have pushed Johnson to scuttle the debt ceiling deal and push for conservative policy provisions — issues including restrictions on abortion access and LGBTQ rights and rollback of Biden's climate agenda and immigration orders — as part of the fiscal deal.
Short of those accomplishments, Johnson's right wing has pushed to forgo passage of appropriations bills entirely and extend funding on a temporary basis until October, which would trigger spending cuts across the federal government as part of a debt moratorium deal. Size. Those cuts would even affect defense spending, a sacred cow for Republicans.
“It looks like what we're doing now — we're doing what the Democrats want to do, and it's going to pass the Senate and be signed by the White House, and that's not a win for the American people,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said Wednesday.
But Johnson and his raucous House Republican caucus have little leverage to adjust those spending cuts or policy wins. The Liberal Alliance has routinely blocked procedural votes to protest the Speaker's spending decisions.
With a small GOP majority, Johnson was forced to seek the support of Democrats for any legislation to remove the chamber.
“We need a supermajority,” said Rep. Thomas Massey (R-Ky.), a hard-right budget hawk who authored the proposal for government-wide spending cuts. “Now that's almost impossible with a two-seat majority.”
