House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s plan to pass the defense appropriations bill—historically the least problematic thing Congress does—was temporarily derailed again Wednesday while amendments were being considered. A small group of Republican nihilists, led by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, insisted that the relatively small amount of aid to Ukraine had to be stripped out of the bill, even though there was bipartisan support for keeping it in. So McCarthy took the extremely unusual move of sending the bill back to the Rules Committee to have the funding stripped out and put into a stand-alone bill.
That’s how things are going for McCarthy right now. His plan has been to pass four appropriations bills to soften up the opposition and get them to agree to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government open past Saturday night, arguing that the Senate would have to accept the House’s stopgap bill. Defense is the easiest of the four bills to pass, and he can’t get that done without a fight. That fight, by the way, included the House agreeing to an amendment to reduce the secretary of defense’s salary to $1, an amendment that would be DOA in the Senate.
The second-easiest bill for the House to pass should be appropriations to the Department of Agriculture, but that bill’s passage looks dubious as well. Meanwhile, passing any of these four bills would not keep the government from running out of funding at midnight on Sept. 30, anyway. About 10 hard-liners insist they will never vote for a continuing resolution, making this entire week of House nonsense futile.
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries has offered an out to McCarthy and to any less nihilistic Republicans who don't want to be blamed for a shutdown. "We are calling for an up-or-down vote when the Senate sends over a bipartisan continuing resolution to fund the government and meet the needs of the American people," Jeffries said on MSNBC Wednesday. "And if that happens, we will provide a substantial number of votes—the lion’s share of votes—and all we will need is a handful of so-called traditional Republicans to join with us in the best interest of the American people and avoid an extreme MAGA Republican shutdown that will … hurt everyone."
That bipartisan Senate bill is still in the works but faces some hurdles. While Senate Republicans definitely don’t want a shutdown that they can be blamed for, they also don’t want to make it too easy for Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. Utah Sen. Mitt Romney conducted an informal whip count in Republicans’ conference lunch on Wednesday, supposedly finding that the majority supports a “clean” funding resolution—no aid to Ukraine and no disaster aid—because they believe it would be easier for McCarthy to get through the House.
It won’t, but bless their little Republican hearts for continuing to believe that those House extremists don’t want a shutdown.
Since McCarthy has rejected the bipartisan Senate proposal and Senate Republicans don’t want a shutdown, they are scrambling to find a way to make it acceptable to House Republicans. Despite the hankering in their conference for a clean bill, they are trying to help McCarthy change the subject to immigration, and are trying to figure out how to inject “border security” into the mix. They’ve apparently got everyone’s least favorite spoiler, independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, in on the plan.
The various Senate fights over immigration, aid to Ukraine, and disaster relief could extend the debate over the bill into Sunday, the first day of the shutdown. McCarthy continues to insist he’ll put a continuing resolution on the House floor on Friday, but as of midday Thursday, that looks like a pipe dream. Congress is going to miss its midnight deadline on Saturday. The only question is how long Republicans will let a shutdown last.
Sign if you agree: No more MAGA circus. Hakeem Jeffries for speaker.
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