Government Shutdown Looms With No Deal in Sight
House Republicans still can't get out of their own way.
NBC News (“House Republicans don’t want a government shutdown, but there’s still no plan“):
After three weeks of chaos and paralysis over the speaker fight, House Republicans say there’s no appetite in their conference for lurching into another crisis: a government shutdown.
But with the deadline just nine days away, Congress still hasn’t come up with a plan to keep the lights on in Washington. Though many lawmakers are upbeat about averting a shutdown, the mood runs counter to their lack of progress and the uncertainty of a new House speaker who is still finding his feet.
Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., hasn’t announced a plan after walking Republicans through several options, and he said the details and next steps of a short-term funding bill remain up in the air.
[…]
House Republicans are all over the map when it comes to how a short-term stopgap bill, known as a continuing resolution, or CR, should be structured. Most of them, however, agree that shutting the government down on Nov. 17 would be a bad idea and would cause more internal GOP strife. Further, a shutdown would be a huge distraction as the party tries to pass its remaining funding bills to set up a negotiation with the Senate on longer-term spending.
“There’s no appetite for a shutdown,” said Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., who is close to leadership and serves on both the Appropriations and Budget committees.
[…]
Republicans are trying to coordinate across the chambers. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, the top Senate GOP appropriator, was set to meet Wednesday with Johnson to discuss the path forward on government funding, said two sources with knowledge of the plan.
Then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., was ousted from power just days after he teamed with Democrats on a “clean” stopgap measure to avert the last shutdown threat on Sept. 30. It sparked a nasty civil war among House Republicans as they struggled for 22 days to elect McCarthy’s successor — a battle that froze the chamber and prevented the party from moving their spending bills.
“I think we have to give ourselves time to pass our appropriations bills. And we have to be realistic because we lost time during the speaker’s race,” Rep. Gus Bilirakis, R-Fla., another appropriator, said. “And in my opinion, we got to back the speaker. Ultimately, he will make the call based on our input.”
“I don’t think anyone really wants a shutdown,” he added.
First-term Rep. John James, R-Mich., who represents a competitive district, didn’t express a preference on a stopgap bill, but said: “We have all the tools necessary to avert a shutdown. We’re going to do everything we can to do that.”
There is no shortage of ideas on how to structure the CR.
In a closed-door meeting this week, Johnson laid out three potential options for averting a shutdown, attendees said: A “two-step” process, favored by conservatives, where a handful of the spending bills would go on a CR through Dec. 7, and the others on a second CR through Jan. 19; a relatively “clean” CR through January to give the House more time to finish passing their spending bills; and Option 3, what leaders described as getting “jammed by Senate, negotiate best we can get.”
“I think we can’t get too cute, and you want to make it as simple as possible,” Bilirakis said of the two-step CR idea.
Some conservatives say they won’t back a clean funding bill without conservative priorities, while other lawmakers are trying to attach aid for Israel or Ukraine to any CR that moves.
“I’m not interested right now personally in a clean CR. I want to see something attached to it,” Rep. Roger Williams, R-Texas, suggesting that he wants to see provisions related to the border, but that those being floated in the Senate are insufficient.
Rep. Andy Barr, R-Ky., said he would like to see a short-term bill that lowers spending from current levels to the caps established in a two-year budget deal in May.
“Look, my personal preference is, I guess, less important than what can get 218 votes,” he said. “So I’m flexible in terms of where to get to avoid a shutdown, while at the same time getting us to the place that maximizes our leverage with the Senate.”
Like several of his ultraconservative Freedom Caucus colleagues, Rep. Ken Buck, R-Colo., is backing the two-step approach, which Johnson has referred to as a “laddered CR.”
“I like the ladder approach. I want to do our best to pass as many appropriations bills as we can this fiscal year,” Buck said.
But even some conservatives who support it acknowledge the idea has lost momentum. Talk of a laddered CR “has died down,” said Rep. Tim Burchett, R-Tenn.
And Budget Chairman Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, called the idea “politically DOA,” arguing that “Democrats will reject it out of hand.”
Rep. Madeleine Dean, D-Pa., blasted the multitiered approach as one that would wreak “havoc and uncertainty” on Americans and industries.
“It’s stunning to me because if you think about conservative Republicans of the past, certainty was what they wanted — limited government and certainty,” she said. “A laddered approach makes no sense. We have to be grown-ups and pass a clean CR and then pass a full budget.”
Some lawmakers say the most plausible scenario is that Johnson puts a relatively clean CR on the floor, just before the shutdown deadline, that can pass with both Republican and Democratic votes — just as McCarthy did before his ouster. But even McCarthy’s biggest detractors have said they’ll give Johnson more breathing room than his predecessor and it’s unlikely any Republican would force a vote to remove him given that he was elected just two weeks ago with support from all 221 Republicans.
“We all learned a lesson from the motion to vacate. It was difficult to find a speaker, a lot of people didn’t want to be speaker and we had trouble getting enough people to to support a speaker,” Buck said. “So, I don’t think you’re gonna see a motion to vacate again in this Congress.”
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the next steps on a stopgap bill will be up to Schumer to decide in the upper chamber, and he’ll then need to sort it out with Johnson.
“On the date issue, I assume the majority leader and the speaker will reach some kind of agreement,” McConnell said
Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman quotes Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries on the app formerly known as Twitter:
“We will only accept a clean continuing resolution that maintains the status quo to allow for continued negotiations around reaching a year end spending agreement, consistent with the bipartisan fiscal responsibility act that Republicans themselves negotiated.”
My guess is that we’ll see either a “clean CR,” with a separate bill(s) on Israel and/or Ukraine, or a slightly less clean CR that does these things. That’s ironic, in that it’s what got McCarthy fired (or, at least, was the last straw), but there simply isn’t resolution that will attract all but four votes from this fractured caucus.
Kicking the can down the road to January is decidedly less than ideal. While it ensures agencies stay open and people get paid, it limits operating and maintenance expenses. It also makes long-term planning impossible and, ironically, ratchets up the costs of procurement programs.
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These quotes I find hard to believe. I think lots of GOP do like the shutdown idea. Also, a lot just do not do compromise – I read the speaker in that group.
I will be big surprised if no shutdown.
@charontwo: I think there are quite a few Republican nihilists who would welcome a shutdown. My congressman, Chip Roy, is one of those. During the Speaker race, he sneered on Facebook about the “appropriators” (meaning Kay Granger) who voted against Jim Jordan. As if they were his enemy. Which they are, at least, to the “my way or the highway” Freedom Caucus.
Can’t get out of their own way? Or choose not to get out of their own way?
These people do have agency, despite the common media belief that Republicans should never be held responsible for their bad behavior while Democrats must be held responsible for fixing it.
IMO this doesn’t get enough attention. Republicans negotiated a deal and immediately went back on it. How can there be a deal or compromise with these guys? Their word means nothing. All my life I marveled at how deals between the bitterest of political rivals were struck and once a promise was made the pols stuck to them. It was absolutely essential for any party officer (Speaker, Leader, Whip, etc) to have an absolute “my word is my bond” commitment. But for modern day Republicans, their word doesn’t even last a few weeks.
MarkedMan hit the nail on the head regarding the media’s failure to notice – and prominently expose – the GOP’s bad faith negotiating. Mike Johnson has to demonstrate his bona fides to the Clown Caucus, hence the shutdown is a given.
@wr: As noted in the OP, it’s a fractured caucus. That they all call themselves “Republicans” doesn’t make them all the same or having a unified agenda. The overwhelming number want a deal done but it’s a tiny majority, with some number (at least four and maybe as many as eight) willing to burn it all down.
@MarkedMan: @Charley in Cleveland: Same answer as above. I think McCarthy made promises in good faith based on his negotiations with the caucus and then the Freedom Caucus moved the goalposts again.
Maybe most Republicans dont want a shutdown but I think the radicals want one. They seem to believe everyone else will cave and they can have their demands met. The only way to stop that is for the GOP being willing to work with Dems and give them some things they want, which is currently verboten if you are a Republican. Im just not sure when they will do it. They may want to hold off since they got someone they want as Speaker.
Steve
@steve:
GOP orthodoxy for a long time. It’s only workable with big majorities, not when your control margin is only four, with four or more intransigents within the caucus.
@James Joyner:
All Republicans are equal, but some Republiqans are more equal than others.
@James Joyner: “I think McCarthy made promises in good faith based on his negotiations with the caucus and then the Freedom Caucus moved the goalposts again.”
It’s refreshing to see such faith in one’s fellow man, but I believe you are the only person on either side who does not believe that McCarthy will make any promise to anyone to get out of a conversation and then promise the opposite to the next person who comes along.
And that’s not just the verdict of some news-junkie like me. This is what has been said by just about everyone who has worked with him…
@James Joyner:
And what the hell difference does that make?
Neither Marked nor Charley said “McCarthy”. They said “they” and “GOP”. We’re not discussing the state of Kevin McCarthy’s immortal soul, but whether any deal made by MAGA Johnson on behalf of his caucus can be trusted. Marked notes that the word of many past leaders was their bond. Why? Same reason a gambler has to pay off his debts. Staying in the game is more important than today’s win or loss. You said yourself, some of them just want to burn it down. Clicks and donations matter to them, negotiating in good faith does not.
@James Joyner:
I think the best we can do is agree to disagree here. I have seen nothing to indicate that McCarthy would keep his word and, to the contrary, a number of Freedom Caucus members said that he had promised them the opposite of what he had promised the Dems and the moderate Republicans. If true, he had to be intending on reneging to one side or the other. In the event, he dumped the sane coalition and sided with the crazies, and we see how that worked out for him as they knew he couldn’t be trusted. Remember what Machiavelli said? (Paraphrasing) “If someone betrays their Prince and throws in with you, once you achieve victory you must immediately kill him, as you know their word and honor is worth nothing.”
Another admittedly very circumstantial piece of evidence: When the last deal was struck, just before his downfall, the Biden administration made it public that in order to bring the Dems on, McCarthy had committed to bringing up Israeli and Ukraine aid together. That seemed highly unusual to me. I don’t ever recall backroom negotiations like that being made deliberately public. Leaked, sure, but this was an on the record comment directly to the press. As soon as I saw that I thought, “They think if they don’t make it public McCarthy will back out of it.”
This suggests a football team with an offense that is slightly out of sync. I think we all know that’s not what’s going on here.
I think Gaetz et al want a shutdown but not the blame for it.
@gVOR10: anjin-san: @Kathy: Again, the problem is that “the Republicans” are not one thing. They’re not a football team, even though the label gives that impression. The Speaker can’t simply cut Members who refuse to run the playbook.
It’s quite possible that Matt Gaetz and a handful of others are quite happy to shut the government down. But 95% of the caucus decidedly does not want that. So, rather obviously, the solution is the one McCarthy chose: working with Democrats to get to a majority. But the nature of the process is that four bomb-throwers can take the power away from a Speaker who does that.
Should Democrats be exasperated, even angry, that deals don’t stay made? Sure. But the fact of the matter is that there’s not a whole hell of a lot GOP leadership, such as it is, can do to fix this.
@James Joyner:
a few points:
[1] Isn’t House GOP Leadership now in the hands of a MAGA Republican, Mike Johnson and his fellow travelers like, Chip Roy, Matt Gaetz, Scott Perry, et al? They know the numbers in the House and the Senate. They can fix this, but they don’t want to fix this (in the old school style of a brokered compromise deal.)
[2] I think this GOP crew wouldn’t mind a shutdown at all, especially since the next election cycle is relatively far off. What they don’t want is the blame. Actually, I’m not sure they care much about that either.