Scorn From Both Side For Speaker Johnson’s Budget Proposal

Before he dashed off to Paris for a few days new House Speaker Mike Johnson teased that he had an idea to “solve” the government shutdown problem. Frankly, I thought he might just be doing a weak Trump imitation of a health care or infrastructure plan coming “soon” and that he’d waiting to see what others who actually knew stuff would come up with. There were reports he’d quietly floated a “laddered” approach to funding various parts of govt. There are after all eleven different funding appropriation bills that get passed when the process works like it’s supposed to. Anyway the idea didn’t seem to get the traction Johnson hoped for.

Maybe he knew it would piss people off and by people I mean plenty on his own side of the aisle. Being on the other side of the Atlantic when he finally revealed his formal proposal he figured he could avoid the initial fireworks. Well, come Monday he’ll be on his way back to the U.S. and when he gets home I think he’ll find the the criticism will just be getting started! So what’s his “bigly” proposal? As The Hill reports it’s indeed his “laddered” approach. Apparently the idea is to punt the shutdown threat until after the holidays. Even a fanatic like Johnson knows how badly it will damage an already wounded GOP. And add yet another major obstacle to House Republicans retaining their majority next year.

So just what is Johnson proposing? From the linked article:

The bill, a “laddered” continuing resolution (CR) would result in some funding running out in mid-January and the rest running out in early February. It tries to dissuade negotiation on a whole-of-government omnibus funding bill and attempts to push for the two houses of Congress to negotiate on the 12 regular funding bills.

Johnson says on twitter/X his two-step CR is necessary to give House Republicans the best chance to fight for conservative (meaning bat-sh*t crazy funding cuts) stuff. He addsThe bill will stop the absurd holiday-season omnibus tradition of massive, loaded up spending bills introduced right before the Christmas recess.” Hey Mikey – it’s YOUR people loading up the budget process with all the crazy amendments. Your very own GOP got some real douches on the Rules Committee and they made it easy for the very thing you’re complaining about. Of course, your predecessor as well as you and your fellow GOPers could have stuck to the deal that was made in the debt ceiling negotiations last June and passed the budget appropriations at the spending level agreed to back then.

Well, we are where we are now with the whole govt. about to come crashing to a halt come Friday night. And rather than being here at home working with other key leaders and members of his House crazy caucus to work something out the Speaker ran away (Ted Cruz could have told him running off someplace fun during a crisis tends to blow up into a huge PR problem) to Paris knowing all along he’d drop his dumbass idea for real while he was gone. Now, to be fair as the article reports there is one well-known fan. Senator RoJo who represents Russia Wisconsin is on board!  Ole RoJo’s positive response to the says it’s not Johnson’s fault we are in this mess so he’s asking all congressional Republicans to support his decision.”  RoJo’s twitter post goes on to claim Speaker Johnson is “acting responsibly” and continues with stock GOP claptrap about mortgaging children’s future.

Ah, but others disagree. For example there’s RoJo’s Democratic colleague Senator Brian Schatz of HI who says:

“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,” Schatz posted to X. “There’s nothing inherently conservative about making simple things super convoluted, and all of this nonsense costs taxpayer money.”

He also points out (as have others) that this provides nothing in the way of aid for Ukraine or Israel, which has bi-partisan support in both chambers. And the WH of course doesn’t think much of the Speaker’s proposal either:

“This proposal is just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns—full stop,” a statement from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre read. “With just days left before an Extreme Republican Shutdown—and after shutting down Congress for three weeks after they ousted their own leader—House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties.”

And the Speaker has serious opposition (albeit different reasons from different GOPers) on his own side of the aisle. For example:

Speaker Johnson’s fellow House Republican, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) also stated his opposition to the CR. “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,’” Roy posted to X.

I suspect there will be plenty of flack flying Johnson’s way tomorrow and beyond. From both sides. (Who says we don’t sometimes have bi-partisanship? BOTH sides will unleash major hate on this) If Johnson thought as I suspect he did that tossing this out in the middle of his big Paris adventure the dust would  have settled by the time he came home I think he’ll find otherwise.