Without the extension, critical services at the Transportation Department would go offline. Food stamp programs could quickly run low on funding. Housing assistance for millions of families would fall into jeopardy. And a week later, funds for the rest of the government, including the Defense and State departments, will also expire unless Congress acts.
The funding bill the House will vote on Thursday is designed to give lawmakers more time to finalize annual spending bills, or appropriations legislation. But it first must pass through an unusual process in the lower chamber that leaves it vulnerable to far-right Republicans who oppose the measure.
Without the support of a majority of the House GOP, the party’s rules say Johnson should not bring the vote to the floor. The last stopgap funding bill the House passed achieved that majority by just a single vote. And if the measure does have enough Republican support, it still also needs a two-thirds majority of the chamber to pass under a process that suspends normal procedural rules.
“I would characterize this as progress given a very tumultuous atmosphere with four corners … all of whom sometimes have very different priorities,” Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.), one of the House GOP’s top negotiators, said. “When you’re making progress, good things happen.”
Democrats on both sides of the Capitol appeared to accept the new short-term framework — but were not too pleased by it.
“If that’s what it takes to get this done, then let’s do it. But this ‘kicking the can down the road’ crap really does need to stop,” said Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), the top Democratic negotiator on the defense appropriations bill.
This government funding process was supposed to be far less fraught. President Biden and then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy last spring agreed to constrain federal spending for the 2024 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, in exchange for suspending the debt limit.
But far-right lawmakers in the House grew furious with McCarthy for not extracting deeper spending cuts, and they ultimately ousted him from the speakership. Republicans elected Johnson as his replacement in late October, and the Louisianian has struggled to navigate spending debates ever since.
In November, he steered the House to pass a stopgap funding bill, called a continuing resolution or CR, that staggered funding deadlines for the federal government over two dates, then pledged he would not consider another CR for the fiscal year.
In January, he and Schumer agreed to a $1.7 trillion fiscal framework, adhering to the limits set by the debt ceiling agreement, then passed another CR to allow appropriators sufficient time to negotiate individual line items.
“Congress has had two chances to shut down the government. Each time a substantial majority in each party said, ‘No,’” Rep. Tom Cole, vice chair of the House Appropriations Committee and a key Johnson ally, said Wednesday. “We can certainly slide into [a government shutdown], but I think most people think it’s not a smart thing to do. I think we’ll be able to get the CR. I think that gives the speaker the time he needs to get these two packages through.”
The far-right House Freedom Caucus and a growing chorus of other conservatives have pushed Johnson to buck the debt limit deal and press for conservative policy provisions — on issues including restrictions on abortion access and LGBTQ rights and clawing back Biden’s climate agenda and immigration orders — as part of a funding agreement.
Short of those achievements, Johnson’s right flank has urged him to abandon passing appropriations bills altogether and extend funding on a temporary basis until October, which would trigger across-the-board spending cuts throughout the federal government as part of the deal that suspended the debt limit. Those cuts would even hit defense spending, long a sacred cow to Republicans.
“It seems right now what we’re doing is — we’re doing what the Democrats want to do so that it will pass the Senate and be signed by the White House, and that’s not a win for the American people,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), chair of the archconservative House Freedom Caucus, said Wednesday.
But Johnson and his raucous House Republican conference have very little leverage to exact those spending cuts or policy wins. The Freedom Caucus has routinely blocked procedural votes, stalling business on the House floor in protest of the speaker’s spending decisions.
With only a tiny GOP majority, that’s forced Johnson to court support from Democrats for nearly any legislation to clear the chamber.
“We need a larger majority,” said Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), the hard-right budget hawk who authored the proposal for the government-wide spending cuts. “It’s almost impossible right now with a two-seat majority.”