Government funding expires Friday at midnight, but congressional leaders are still finalizing an expanding compromise to punt the deadline and staple on hundreds of billions of dollars in unrelated additional spending.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pitched his yet-to-be finalized deal inside a closed House Republican Conference meeting Tuesday morning. But Republicans from different ideological corners of the conference left angry, condemning the process, timeline, contents, and more.
The continuing resolution (CR), which would extend current funding levels due to Congress’s failure to pass each of the twelve government funding bills, will receive an up or down vote and is projected to last through March 14, 2025.
But the CR is weighed down by so many unrelated but consequential – and expensive – provisions that many lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), do not consider the bill a true CR.
“It’s not a CR, which is a continuation of the budget,” Greene said as she left the meeting. “It’s turning into an omnibus.”
With an omnibus bill, Congress would still vote-up-or-down on the entire discretionary funding for the government, but each of the twelve components would receive updates for the fiscal year. The developing CR does not reflect updates but includes numerous additional spending items, a development that has upset many Republicans – and not just conservatives.
“Everything I am hearing about the CR thus far leads me to believe that I’ll be voting NO,” Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-NY), considered friendly to leadership, posted on X. “Republicans are in the majority and yet the Democrats seem to get more of their priorities in than we do.”
Those add-ons are expected to include a far-reaching healthcare package including provisions championed by the pharmaceutical industry, a one-year farm bill extension that sends over 80 percent of its funds to food stamps, workforce development programs that historically disproportionately benefit deep-blue urban centers, a plan to allow year-round E15 gasoline sales, and almost $100 billion in disaster aid, among others.
Johnson, who promised in September there would be no pre-Christmas omnibus, pushed back on criticisms in a post-meeting press conference, insisting his hands are tied.
“This is not an omnibus, OK?” he said. “This is a small CR that we had to add things to that were out of our control. These are not man-made disasters. These are things that are — the federal government has an appropriate role to do.”
“So, I wish it weren’t necessary,” he added. “I wish we hadn’t had record hurricanes in the fall. And I wish our farmers were not in a bind so much that creditors are not able to lend to them. We have to be able to help those who are in these dire straits,” Johnson said.
Through it all, members below the leadership level have been cut out, despite assurances Johnson. made when running for the speakership that he would work collaboratively with his conference.
“This is not the process that we signed up for,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said. “We’re supposed to actually be able to amend, debate on the floor of the House, and this is not that.”
He added that the CR “is a 1400 page bill with dozens of important policies” and that the House “should have multiple votes” to ensure each separate provision receives adequate scrutiny by the people’s representatives.
Roy also suggested Johnson was getting rolled by Democrat demands and that he should call their bluff. He said that Democrats in negotiations were withholding support for Johnson’s asks – like farm aid that included funding offsets – that they would not oppose if brought to the floor for a vote.
“It’s all a matter of, like, how you play the game,” he said, adding that Johnson should “make Democrats vote down farm aid. Put it on the floor, actually go down and legislate, force Democrats to eat the crap that they say they will do. I don’t believe [they’ll oppose it]. And so instead, we get this negotiated crap, and we’re forced to eat this crap sandwich. Why? Because fricking Christmas is right around the corner. It’s the same dang thing every year – legislate by crisis, legislate by calendar, not legislate because it’s the right thing to do.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), a moderate from a district won by Vice President Harris in November, also criticized Johnson for letting Democrats run negotiations and cutting out Republicans. The Hill, citing a source, reported:
Lawler also aired grievances about Democrats playing a key role in the funding process, telling Johnson at one point, “I’m not a f‑‑‑ing Democrat.”
“Lawler just went to the microphone and he said, ‘This is no way to due process. … This is bulls‑‑‑,’” the source said. “He’s like, ‘Look, why are you telling me, if I want something I need to go talk to [Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer], and [House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries] hasn’t blessed this.’”
“He literally said, ‘because I’m not a f‑‑‑ing Democrat,’” the source added. “He said, you know, I should be able to go move the concerns and priorities for my district without having to go talk to these guys. He said it hasn’t been a member-driven process.”
This CR will be the second time Congress has punted after previously failing to pass government funding bills by the original September 30, 2024, deadline.
Former Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted from the speakership in October 2023 after pushing through a CR upon failing to move individual spending bills on time and by regular order.
Johnson passed the September CR under suspension of the rules, which requires two-thirds support but bypassed procedures by which his fellow Republicans who opposed the bill could stop it. That CR, which Schumer openly gloated for negotiating, received overwhelming support from Democrats in the House.
Widespread Republican disgust with the latest CR suggests Johnson once again will be required to suspend the rules and enlist support from Democrats – who will likely be eager to do so.
The longer negotiations continue, the closer Johnson runs into the 72-hour rule, a Republican Conference rule that text of major legislation must be available to study 72 hours before a vote.
Johnson expressed his desire Tuesday to abide by the rule, although he was noncommittal to sticking by it. If text drops Tuesday afternoon, the soonest the House could vote on the CR under compliance with the 72-hour rule would be late Friday, hours before the midnight deadline. The Senate, which faces its own parliamentary hurdles, must then pass the bill before it reaches Joe Biden’s desk.
Greene, who earlier this year forced a vote to strip Johnson’s gavel, recently reached a detente with the Louisianan, pledging in December to vote for Johnson for speaker in January (although notably no other candidate has stepped forward) after an announcement from Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer (R-KY) that Green would receive a valuable DOGE subcommittee gavel.
She showed restraint Tuesday in refusing to overtly criticize Johnson, although she lamented that the House is going through the same old song and dance, regardless of who is calling the tune.
“Here we are today, on Tuesday, [and] we haven’t seen any bill text,” she said. “We’re supposed to fly out on Thursday. We’ve had a long time to deal with it, so it’s the same, basically same pattern of behavior, and here we are now.”
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.