House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) rolled out a two-step government funding stopgap bill on Saturday, settling on an unusual approach to avert a government shutdown that is already getting pushback from Republicans with just days until a Friday funding deadline.
The “laddered” continuing resolution (CR) released Saturday would have some funding run out on Jan. 19, and the rest of the funding on Feb. 2 — an approach intended to discourage negotiation of a whole-of-government omnibus funding bill and to encourage the House and Senate to negotiate on the 12 regular funding bills.
It would fund the government until that time at current spending levels without any budget cuts or additional major policy riders, dealing a blow to Republicans who had sought to tie policy changes like changes to asylum laws to the bill. That prompted at least one Republican to voice immediate opposition to the “clean” extension.
“My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days – for future ‘promises,’” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) posted on X.
But Johnson, in making one of the first major decisions of his Speakership, defended the plan.
“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement on Saturday. “The bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess. Separating out the CR from the supplemental funding debates places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border.”
Also not included in the bill is any aid to Israel, which does not have a clear path to final approval in Congress. House Republicans earlier this month passed a $14.3 billion aid package that included cuts to IRS funding as a pay-for. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he would not take up in the upper chamber.
Senate Democrats also appear unlikely to embrace the proposal.
“We are going to pass a clean short term CR. The only question is whether we do it stupidly and catastrophically or we do it like adults. There’s nothing inherently conservative about making simple things super convoluted, and all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money,” Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) wrote on X.
The laddered CR is an approach that was generally favored by hard-line conservatives but had garnered skepticism from appropriators.
Earlier in the week, Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.), a House Appropriations subcommittee chair, said that he did not think a laddered CR approach was realistic and that the Senate would not accept such a plan.
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