Congress is once again rushing to pass a stopgap measure to fund the government and avoid a shutdown of federal agencies — and, as has so often been the case in recent years, the process has spun into a politically fraught mess.
Congressional leaders reached a deal Tuesday on a package that would fund the government until March 14 and include a host of other measures. The agreement on a so-called continuing resolution, just days ahead of a December 20 expiration of current federal funding, left staffers scrambling to finalize hundreds of pages of legislative text that had initially been expected to be unveiled two days earlier. The bill text, and an accompanying Disaster Offset and Government Efficiency (or DOGE) Act, was finally released just after 6:30 p.m. ET.
The dragged-out dealmaking left many Republicans fuming at House Speaker Mike Johnson, who faces a January 3 vote to keep his gavel in the next Congress. Conservatives abhor sprawling, must-pass, year-end legislative packages — and they argue that this legislation closely resembles one of those “omnibus” bills rather than a simple extension of government funding. (Some conservatives oppose those “skinny” bills on principle, too.)
The deal reportedly includes:
- About $100 billion in disaster aid in response to the hurricanes that hit the southeast this year;
- $10 billion in financial assistance to farmers;
- a one-year extension of the farm bill;
- a provision allowing year-round sales of gasoline with a higher ethanol blend, a major win for corn and ethanol producers;
- a major overhaul of pharmacy benefit managers, which could lead to lower prescription drug prices;
- extensions of Medicare telehealth flexibilities and several other health-related measures.
“It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage,” said Rep. Eric Burlison of Missouri, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Burlison told Newsmax that he’s disappointed in Johnson. “We complained about Nancy Pelosi dropping thousands of pages of omnibus bill before Christmas,” he said. “How is this any different?”
Another Freedom Caucus member, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, was outspoken in his opposition. “We get this negotiated crap, and we’re forced to eat this crap sandwich,” he said. “Why? Because freaking 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.”
It isn’t just GOP hardliners who are angry at Johnson. Some moderates have also been giving him heat for his handling of this deal and the details of the legislation.
“The reality,” Jake Sherman and Melanie Zanona of Punchbowl News wrote Tuesday afternoon, “is that Johnson had to accede to a host of Democratic demands because he needs their votes. Several senior House Republican leadership sources told us that more than 100 GOP lawmakers are likely to vote against the bill.”
Johnson reportedly tried to sell the deal to his skeptical members at a morning meeting of House Republicans, and he defended it at a news conference, arguing that it is not a “Christmas tree,” as those on Capitol Hill refer to year-end bills festooned with a host of legislative baubles to appease lawmakers. He insisted that the bill started out as a simple funding stopgap but then needed to have disaster relief and farm aid added to it.
“This is not an omnibus, OK? This is a small CR that we had to add things to that were out of our control,” Johnson told reporters. “These are not man-made disasters. These are things that the federal government has an appropriate role to do. So, I wish it weren’t necessary. 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.”
Some House Republicans reportedly added their own fresh demands, as CNN reports they made “a last-minute push to shore up funding for the Department of Homeland Security in the continuing resolution, hoping to give President-elect Donald Trump the resources to fulfill his mass deportation pledge.”
But the broad-based GOP anger raises questions about how the bill will get to the House floor. Johnson said that he plans to give members 72 hours to review the legislation. He also said he would like to try to move the bill through regular order rather than under a suspension of the rules, which would require a two-thirds majority. Both paths present hurdles: It’s not clear that the bill can clear a procedural vote in the Rules Committee, or that it can win a two-thirds majority on the House floor, given GOP grumbling.
The bottom line: The timing of votes this week remains unclear. If Johnson sticks to the 72-hour rule, Friday is the earliest the House would vote. Still, no one believes we’ll see a government shutdown at the end of the week. Remember, though, that this stopgap just kicks the annual government funding bills into early next year, when a GOP-led Congress and the new Trump administration also plan to be pursuing key items on their agenda.
Check back tomorrow for more on what is or isn’t in the final deal.
