President Joe Biden will spend Tuesday afternoon meeting with leaders of Congress in hopes of crafting a way to avoid a looming partial federal government shutdown. It’s the fourth time since last fall that the country faces a government shutdown. And for the third time, the onus falls on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to figure out how he’s going to deliver the House and avert catastrophe. As of Monday evening, the odds were not in his favor.
Johnson rose to the speakership as the last man standing in a lengthy, damaging fight among Republicans last fall, in the aftermath of the first averted shutdown. A former darling of the House’s conservatives, as a candidate for speaker he promised an aggressive schedule to deliver wins in spending negotiations with the White House and Senate Democrats. Instead, Johnson has found himself again and again unable to cash the checks he wrote to his far-right flank and his fellow congressional leaders. The resulting penalties could cost him — and millions of Americans — dearly.
Johnson has found himself again and again unable to cash the checks he wrote to his far-right flank and his fellow congressional leaders.
As things stand, the government has been funded since October with a series of short-term spending bills, known as continuing resolutions, that hold funding at the same levels as last year. House Republicans have been trying to force Democrats to accept major spending cuts, despite struggling to pass even their own proposals on party-line votes. Upon his ascension, Johnson promised to get all the spending bills over the line with an aggressive calendar, and use the GOP’s unity as leverage to force Democrats to capitulate.
That hasn’t exactly been the case. After only a few weeks on the job, Johnson convinced skeptical Democrats to go along with a two-step “ladder” plan that split the government’s funding into two tranches. The first tier, which includes funding covered by four annual spending bills — Agriculture, Energy and Water, Military Construction-VA, and Transportation-HUD — is due to expire on Friday. The other eight — including the State and Foreign Operations and Defense budgets — expire a week later, on March 8. Both deadlines were actually already moved back before, after a lack of progress in January forced another short-term fix.
Since then, Johnson has tried to play the part of serious legislator. Last month, he came to an agreement on top-line spending with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer — which just happened to be the exact same agreement his predecessor, former Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, had reached with Biden. Bipartisan appropriators hoped to unveil those four bills last weekend, with the goal of bringing them to the floor when the House returns on Wednesday.
This was always a very, very tight window to get anything done in Congress. Then those talks broke down as it became clear there were still a number of unresolved issues, mostly among Johnson’s caucus.
Publicly, Johnson blames a proposed boost to the Agriculture spending bill from Senate Democrats that would cover a shortfall in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children — better known as WIC. But more problematic for him is what he promised his caucus’ right flank: that while spending levels might not come down as much as they’d hoped, there was still ample opportunity for Republicans to score wins via riders attached to the spending bills. And the far-right Freedom Caucus isn’t about to let him forget his assurances, sending the speaker a letter last week that listed almost two dozen harmful and regressive policy changes that they have demanded any spending bills include.
The problem is the same as it has been since the GOP took control of the House last January.
These spending bills could still pass without those changes or the Freedom Caucus’ votes. Democrats could easily make up the difference. It’s the same stunt that the right has deployed each of the last three times that funding has almost expired, and Democrats provided the majority of votes in each case.
The problem is the same as it has been since the GOP took control of the House last January. With a narrow majority, the speaker remains vulnerable to a right flank that would rather see the government closed than allow any proposed compromise. Far-right diehards already have taken down one speaker, and while they’ve held their fire so far, their patience is being tested.
With the entirety of Senate leadership, including Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Biden opposed to a shutdown, it’s up to Johnson to hold up his end of the process on Capitol Hill. Johnson is going to have to renege on one front if the current impasse is going to be broken. The speaker could bring a set of compromise bills to the floor, relying on Democrats to bail him out and risking the wrath of the far-right. Or he can stand with the Freedom Caucus and allow the government to shut down, incurring the wrath of Americans, including millions of veterans who would be unable to access federal services. Most likely, though, is that he brings another short-term bill to the floor to buy himself a little more time. But the interest on that loan could be crippling — and full payment is coming due.
