Speaker Mike Johnson is in trouble as government funding runs out on Friday, and many Republicans have likened his massive last-minute spending package to a “dumpster fire.”
The speaker has weathered numerous funding battles this year and has repeatedly opted to pass continuing resolutions (CRs), which are measures that expand current funding levels.
Johnson hopes another CR will be passed before midnight Friday to extend funding again by three months to March 14, meaning the new Trump administration will face a deadline within its first 100 days.
If the speaker doesn’t get the bill passed before the funding ends Friday, the government could be partially shut down.
As this deadline approaches, many Republicans have expressed opposition to Johnson’s planned CR, and with a slim majority of just a few votes, he is expected to need Democrats to help him get this package across the finish line.
“He knows he’s in a box,” Republican Ralph Norman, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus (HFC), said Tuesday. “A lot of people are angry.”
Norman, like many other Republicans, said he would not vote for the speaker’s plan.
“It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s nonsense,” Rep. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., another HFC member, said of the CR.
Speaker Mike Johnson has been in meetings trying to figure out the details of a government funding bill that he said would be released publicly on Sunday. As of Tuesday evening, the bill has still not been released and Republicans are expressing their dissatisfaction. If the bill is not passed this week, funding could run out and the government could be partially shut down
Republican Rep. Chip Roy blasted the speaker, saying his maneuvering has forced the Republican Party to eat a “nonsense sandwich”
‘1,500+ pages. Deadline for Friday,” Burlison wrote on X, adding, “This city is beyond broken.”
The 1,547-page document was released by GOP leadership Tuesday evening.
Many members this year have expressed frustration at being forced to read through Biblical accounts without much time to digest their contents.
For his part, Johnson has also expressed his disgust at the emergency funding plan.
In principle, we don’t like continuing resolutions, but in this case, as a Republican, as a conservative, it makes the most sense, and that’s why all conservative groups are in favor of that idea,” he said in a speech. recent Fox News interview.
“Because it allows us to make more of these important decisions in the new year, when we have the new Congress, the new president, the new Senate and the new House of Representatives.”
Outspoken Johnson critic Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the speaker’s spending plan forces members to eat a “nonsense sandwich.”
“We’re fed this negotiated nonsense, and we’re forced to eat this nonsense sandwich,” he said. “It’s the same thing every year. Make legislation per crisis, make legislation per calendar. Don’t legislate because that’s the right thing to do.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a frequent critic of Johnson, on Tuesday compared the CR to ‘BS’
Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Mike Johnson, R-La., attends a press conference after a House Republican conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., December 17, 2024
New York Republican Rep. Nicole Malliotakis wrote on The Republicans are in the majority and yet the Democrats seem to make more of their priorities than we do.’
Many Republicans in conservative districts have adopted personal rules to vote against any CR effort, seeing it as a lazy way of legislating that will lead to additional government spending.
“We always talk about this every year, this is the problem with Washington,” Rep. Wesley Hunt said of the upcoming spending bill. “Merry Christmas… We have no idea what we’re voting on.”
Hunt represents an overwhelmingly Republican district in Texas and claims his voters don’t support the CRs, so he doesn’t.
He said the CR has “all kinds of bloat” and that he too will vote against the speaker’s plan.
In addition to increasing current spending levels, the CR will reportedly include more than $100 billion in disaster assistance, in addition to $10 billion in agricultural aid for farmers.
Many Democrats have pushed for provisions in the CR because Johnson and the Republican majority will have to rely on their votes to get a package through the House after Republicans rebelled against Johnson’s plan.
More than a dozen Republican House members have already said they oppose the bill.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who months ago threatened to remove Johnson from power over a new CR fight, also denounced the speaker’s plan on Tuesday, saying it “will result in more Democrats than Republicans voting for it.”
“But it’s the same old Uniparty BS,” she added, accusing leaders of “passing around important programs as a bargaining chip to fuel even more government waste and increase our budget deficit.”