Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson have a deal on funding the government for the rest of the fiscal year. After months of House Republican chest-beating over funding cuts, and the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy when he didn’t make them happen, the agreement puts Congress right back where it was in May. Johnson agreed to basically the same funding toplines that McCarthy and Biden agreed to seven months ago in the deal that raised the debt ceiling.
A deal between the two congressional leaders is not, however, a funded government, and there are two big obstacles that stand in the way. The first one is time. There are two deadlines on funding the government—Jan. 19 and Feb. 2—and the House won’t even start legislative work this week until Wednesday afternoon. That’s a tight window of time to work through agreements on the 12 appropriations bills. On top of that, there’s a federal holiday this upcoming Monday.
The second obstacle is the Freedom Caucus’ vehement opposition to the deal.
“This is total failure,” the group tweeted after the deal was announced. They are furious that Johnson agreed to honor a “side deal” that McCarthy and Biden made last year, which includes $69 billion to nondefense programs. The usual suspects are livid.
“That’s a hard no,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas tweeted at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who touted the deal. Rep. Bob Good of Virginia, the new chair of the Freedom Caucus, said it’s “nothing but another loss for America.” Montana Rep. Matt Rosendale, one of the eight GOP members who voted to oust McCarthy, said it reflects the “D.C. Cartel’s addiction to wasteful, unnecessary spending.” And Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene—who voted for the deal back in May—tweeted, “I am a NO to the Johnson Schumer budget deal. … So much for the power of the purse!”
Johnson tried and failed to win over extremists with a promise in his dear-colleague letter that he would “fight for the important policy riders included in our House FY24 bills.” Those riders would be the poison pills to restrict abortion and gender-affirming health care, and to ban books in libraries in military base schools.
The Freedom Caucus crowd probably is smart enough to comprehend that’s an empty promise because the only way that this agreement can be turned into passed funding bills is without those riders—after all, the bills must pass with Democratic votes. Also, the Democratic leaders in the Senate and House promised “full-year appropriations bills, free of poison pill policy changes.”
The announced agreement sets aside the ongoing fight over border security and Ukraine funding, which is just another point of contention for the Republican maniacs. A good chunk of them (including some of the eight who ousted McCarthy) want to shut the government down over the border. “No more money for his bureaucracy until you’ve brought this border under control,” Arizona Rep. Andy Biggs declared last week. That group includes Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio, who has tied funding the government to shutting down the border.
The timeline, the border, and the extremely thin GOP majority in the House (made even smaller by the absence of Majority Leader Steve Scalise for cancer treatment) all combine to set Johnson up for potential failure. If he caters to his extremists, the government shuts down and the blame will be squarely on him and his inability to lead.
Alternatively, he navigates all this successfully and the government stays open and an enraged Freedom Caucus has more incentive to remove him. They’re already complaining that they booted McCarthy and still “failed to get a more conservative speaker.” Don’t be surprised if there’s more speaker drama in the year ahead, which would be fine, just as long as the government gets funded. It would make for a deliciously entertaining election year.
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