House Speaker Mike Johnson told the Republican caucus after he was elected speaker that he was done with short-term continuing resolutions to fund the government.
But the speaker was flirting with disaster after he inked a spending framework with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer that would see a top-line spending number of $1.59 trillion through the end of the fiscal year next October. This was far above what conservative members were demanding.
And now, Johnson is looking at a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government through March 8. It would be a two-tiered "laddered" funding patch, with the first part expiring March 1 and the second lasting until March 8.
The incipient revolt that broke out last week when House right-wingers voted against a procedural motion that would have brought GOP-backed bills to the floor was a clear warning to Johnson that the pass they gave him on the first CR had expired and that he was in danger of being booted from the speaker's chair.
Johnson is plunging ahead anyway.
Speaker Mike Johnson is backing the plan, which is necessary to finish a slate of 12 spending bills for the current fiscal year, after he previously rejected the notion of another short-term funding extension. Johnson is expected to brief the GOP conference on Sunday night.
The second “laddered” approach will almost certainly require hefty Democratic support to pass the House, while conservatives fume at the Louisiana Republican for cutting a deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on a government funding framework for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1.
The GOP hardliners on spending can't get Johnson to budge on his deal with Schumer. And he's not likely to give in to any demands to alter his plan to adopt a CR to get Congress over the hump and give the House enough time to fund the government for the rest of the year.
House Republicans will have a conference call Sunday night to discuss the continuing resolution, the source told CNN. And the text of the resolution is expected to be posted Sunday evening, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said.
Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson announced last weekend that they had reached an agreement on topline spending numbers, the first step in the process to fund the federal government.
It's likely that this means a motion to vacate the speaker's chair and a new election for a speaker. Those who live for chaos will celebrate. Those who don't will be slowly losing patience with the hardliners.
"If all you’re here to do is rant and rave and scream, why’d you come?" conservative Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., told Fox News Digital of that group. "I don’t scream if I’m in the operating room and don’t have the right equipment, I make it work."
For the Democrats, it's easy pickings. They don't have to manufacture anything to show that Republicans are the crazy party. The GOP is doing that job for them.
The hardliners have zero chance of effecting the kinds of catastrophic budget cuts they're throwing a tantrum over. With a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president, they're not going to cut $350 billion from that $1.59 trillion top-line number. So why waste time on it?
The hardliners aren't very good at lawmaking. They're terrible at building consensus and negotiations. But they're very good at strutting across the national stage and attracting attention by beating their chests and railing against the budget.
It took 75 years to create a $33 trillion national debt. It's going to take about that long to get out of debt. But the hardliners don't even want to start the process. They're very big on gestures but come up short in dealing with the reality of the budget and what it represents.
