The House voted overwhelmingly to prevent a government shutdown after new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to reach across the aisle to Democrats when hard-right conservatives revolted against his plan. The bipartisan tally \u2013 336-95 with 93 Republicans voting no \u2013 showed Johnson\u2019s willingness to leave his right-flank Republicans behind and work with Democrats to temporarily keep the government running \u2013 the same political move that cost the last House speaker, Kevin McCarthy, his job just weeks ago. This time, Johnson of Louisiana appeared on track for a temporarily better outcome. His approach, which the Senate is expected to approve by week\u2019s end, effectively pushes a final showdown over government funding to the new year.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking sure that government stays in operation is a matter of conscience for all of us. We owe that to the American people,\u201d Johnson said earlier on Tuesday at a news conference at the Capitol. The new Republican leader faced the same political problem that led to McCarthy\u2019s ouster \u2013 angry, frustrated, hard-right GOP lawmakers rejected his approach, demanded budget cuts, and voted against the plan. Rather than the applause and handshakes that usually follow the passage of a bill, several hardline conservatives animatedly confronted the speaker as they exited the chamber.<\/p>\n
Without enough support from his Republican majority, Johnson had little choice but to rely on Democrats to ensure passage to keep the federal government running. Shortly before the Tuesday evening vote, House Democratic leaders issued a joint statement saying that the package met all their requirements and they would support it. Johnson\u2019s proposal puts forward a unique \u2013 critics say bizarre \u2013 two-part process that temporarily funds some federal agencies to January 19 and others to February 2. It\u2019s a continuing resolution, or CR, that comes without any of the deep cuts conservatives have demanded all year. It also fails to include President Joe Biden\u2019s request for nearly USD 106 billion for Ukraine, Israel, border security, and other supplemental funds.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not surrendering,\u201d Johnson assured after a closed-door meeting of House Republicans Tuesday morning, vowing he would not support another stopgap. \u201cBut you have to choose fights you can win.\u201d Johnson, who announced his endorsement on Tuesday of Donald Trump as the Republican nominee for president, hit the airwaves to sell his approach and met privately Monday night with the conservative Freedom Caucus. Johnson says the innovative approach would position House Republicans to \u201cgo into the fight\u201d for deeper spending cuts in the new year, but many Republicans are skeptical there will be any better outcome in January. The House Freedom Caucus announced its opposition, ensuring dozens of votes against the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019s a very big mistake,\u201d said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the hard-right group of lawmakers. \u201cIt\u2019s wrong,\u201d said Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn. It left Johnson with few other options than to skip what\u2019s typically a party-only procedural vote and rely on another process that requires a two-thirds tally with Democrats for passage. Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in a letter to colleagues noted that the GOP package met the Democratic demands to keep funding at current levels without steep reductions or divisive Republican policy priorities.<\/p>\n
\u201cExtreme MAGA Republicans have repeatedly demonstrated that they cannot govern without House Democrats,\u201d Jeffries said on NPR. \u201cThat will be the case this week in the context of avoiding a government shutdown.\u201d Winning bipartisan approval of a continuing resolution is the same move that led McCarthy\u2019s hard-right flank to oust him in October, days after the September 30 vote to avert a federal shutdown. For now, Johnson appears to be benefiting from a political honeymoon in one of his first big tests on the job. \u201cLook, we\u2019re going to trust the speaker\u2019s move here,\u201d said Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-Ga.<\/p>\n
But Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., a McCarthy ally who opposed his ouster, said Johnson should be held to the same standard. \u201cWhat\u2019s the point in throwing out one speaker if nothing changes? The only way to make sure that real changes happen is to make the red line stay the same for every speaker.\u201d The Senate, where Democrats have a slim majority, has signalled its willingness to accept Johnson\u2019s package ahead of Friday\u2019s deadline to fund the government. Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell called the House package \u201ca solution\u201d and said he expected it to pass Congress with bipartisan support.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s nice to see us working together to avoid a government shutdown,\u201d he said. But McConnell, R-Ky., has noted that Congress still has work to do toward Biden\u2019s request to provide US military aid for Ukraine and Israel and for other needs. Senators are trying to devise a separate package to fund US supplies for overseas wars and to bolster border security, but it remains a work in progress. If approved, passage of the continuing resolution would be a less-than-triumphant capstone to the House GOP\u2019s first year in the majority. The Republicans have worked tirelessly to cut federal government spending only to find their own GOP colleagues unwilling to go along with the most conservative priorities. Two of the Republican bills collapsed last week as moderates revolted.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Republicans are left funding the government essentially on autopilot at the levels that were set in bipartisan fashion at the end of 2022, when Democrats had control of Congress but the two parties came together to agree on budget terms. All that could change in the new year when 1 per cent cuts across the board to all departments would be triggered if Congress failed to agree to new budget terms and pass the traditional appropriation bills to fund the government by springtime. The 1 per cent automatic cuts, which would take hold in April, are despised by all sides \u2013 Republicans say they are not enough, Democrats say they are too steep and many lawmakers prefer to boost defence funds. But they are part of the debt deal McCarthy and Biden struck earlier this year. The idea was to push Congress to do better.<\/p>\n
The legislation also extends farm bill programs through September, the end of the current fiscal year. That addition was an important win for some farm-state lawmakers. Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., for example, warned that without the extension, milk prices would have soared and hurt producers back in his home state. \u201cThe farm bill extension was the biggest sweetener for me,\u201d said Pocan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The House voted overwhelmingly to prevent a government shutdown after new Republican Speaker Mike Johnson was forced to reach across\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":11290,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[747,299,168,1278,1418,3231,3232,298,265,3230,776],"class_list":["post-11289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-congress","tag-democrats","tag-donald-trump","tag-government-shutdown","tag-israel-hamas-war","tag-maga","tag-republican-speaker-mike-johnson","tag-republicans","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-spending-cuts","tag-us"],"reading_time":"6 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}