With just days to go before a government shutdown, newly-installed House Speaker Mike Johnson has unveiled his budget plan, and it's already causing waves.
The plan involves what is being dubbed a "ladder CR," which essentially breaks the normal process down into two steps. That's being done in an attempt to appease the budget hawks in the GOP caucus.
Just two and a half weeks into the job, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to go with a two-step continuing resolution, or CR, over a more typical funding extension covering the entire federal government. The untested funding approach is aimed at appeasing far-right agitators in his GOP conference who despise CRs.
The controversy surrounds whether this actually means anything different than just passing a regular continuing resolution. While this CR approach would split the expiration dates up, with some facets expiring on January 19th and other facets expiring on February 2nd, one big problem remains: There are no budget cuts.
In other words, there appears to be precious little difference between this approach and the one that got former Speaker Kevin McCarthy booted from the position in early October. Rep. Chip Roy immediately voiced his opposition.
“It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” Roy tweeted. “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.”
Remember, the entire reason McCarthy was voted out by the "gang of eight" led by Rep. Matt Gaetz is that the eight percent spending cut he was negotiating wasn't enough. Now, it looks like there will be no spending cuts at all, with yet another clearn CR kicking the can down the road.
I'm not going to say "I told you so" because there's a lot left to happen here, but the signs are not good. Perhaps Johnson is a better Speaker long-term, and I really like him as a person. Certainly, I think it's fair to still prefer him over McCarthy no matter what happens with the budget. Politically, though, it's also fair to wonder what the big win here was that made that prolonged motion to vacate battle worth it. A battle, mind you, that ended with another Republican underperformance in an election. Did the chaos have an effect on voters last Tuesday? I don't know, but it probably didn't help.
What's done is done on that front, though, and Johnson is the guy. He's not going anywhere and McCarthy isn't coming back nor should he. With that said, the new Speaker's honeymoon is going to be over fairly quickly if the status quo is maintained. It'll be interesting to see what those who ousted McCarthy have to say about this new development. Are they going to maintain a hardline regarding the national debt and spending, or are they willing to give Johnson a break in order to start things off on a good foot? We'll find out.