I’m starting to get déjà vu.
We’re mere days away from the deadline to fund the government or face a shutdown, and Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is facing a situation that looks like the one his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, went through before being ousted.
On Saturday, Johnson released his plan for a continuing resolution (CR) that lacks spending cuts. This, once again, has a small but influential group of Republicans coming out in opposition, making Democrat support necessary for it to pass.
According to reports, Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), Bob Good (R-Va.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), and George Santos (R-N.Y.) say they won’t support the CR. If you don’t want to go through another scenario where we are without a House speaker for a period of time, you might be a bit concerned.
Relying on help from the Democrats is always a risky proposition. They don’t care about what’s good for the country, and they certainly wouldn’t do anything to help a Republican politically. They could have saved McCarthy from losing the speaker’s gavel if they had wanted to, but they didn’t. Of course, while it was an embarrassing few weeks of Republican infighting, eventually we got a new speaker Republicans could all agree on and Democrats couldn’t stand.
Johnson, like McCarthy, knows that a CR can’t just pass the House, but must also pass the Democrat-controlled Senate. Last time, much of the kerfuffle over the CR was about funding for Ukraine (which Democrats wanted and didn’t get) and spending cuts (which some Republicans wanted more of but didn’t get). With enough Republicans saying they won’t support Johnson’s CR, Democrats once again have all the power to determine the outcome.
And as I reported before, despite their public statements to the contrary, a shutdown is exactly what Democrats want, so we can easily expect similar tricks this time around to force a shutdown. Why would they do this? Because the mainstream media always pushes the Democrats’ narrative for each shutdown: it’s the Republicans' fault. Even when a government shutdown happens with a Democrat in the Oval Office, and said Democrat has used his power to make the shutdown as painful as possible, Republicans get blamed.
No matter what happens with this CR, there will be plenty of unhappy people. Republicans who want significant spending cuts will be livid if it passes, but more substantial cuts won’t pass the Democrat-controlled Senate, which bring us to an impasse and an inevitable shutdown.
Can Johnson accomplish what McCarthy could not? If Johnson needs Democrat support, and gets it, will he get the McCarthy treatment? I was hoping that in light of the unity Republicans had when they elected Johnson this was a good sign they’d be united when it came time to fund the government with another CR, but that unity appears to be short-lived.
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but this is a heavy and consequential test of leadership for Johnson—and I hope he passes the test.
