December 16, 2024 11:25 AM UTC

We're Getting Nothing for Christmas; House Republicans are Mad

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• by: Colorado Pols

It’s not your fault; you haven’t been bad.

House Republicans are scrambling (again) to figure out a way to fund the government (again) before an end-of-week deadline. As The Hill newspaper reports:

Congressional negotiators are struggling to reach a deal to keep the government’s lights on past Dec. 20.

Text of a continuing resolution (CR) for a government funding package was expected Sunday ahead of the looming shutdown deadline.

But lawmakers failed to release the text, with economic assistance for farmers emerging as an apparent last-minute sticking point. [Pols emphasis]

Key players had indicated this week that the forthcoming CR, which keeps the government funded at current levels, would also include another one-year extension of the 2018 farm bill, as both sides have struggled to agree on a longer-term plan. But lawmakers had also ramped up talks of potential add-ons to provide economic assistance for farmers as part of the broader funding plan.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is now faced with needing the help of House Democrats (again) in order to pass a continuing resolution to fund the federal government after he bungled negotiations related to farmer assistance. As POLITICO explains:

Johnson is facing a brewing rebellion from farm district Republicans after congressional leaders failed to secure an agreement to add economic aid for farmers to the next stop-gap spending bill.

The threat of a new wave of GOP defections among farm district Republicans presents a fresh challenge for Johnson, who is already navigating a narrow majority and opposition from his own right flank as he tries to fund the government before a shutdown Dec. 21. And it will likely force the speaker to find more Democratic votes before the current funding runs out Friday.

The speaker’s team has been exploring other options to add the farm aid into the stopgap, but Democrats are demanding their own additions in return. As Johnson attended the Army-Navy football game with President-elect Donald Trump Saturday, his team quietly worked to hold off any more GOP defections, according to three people familiar with the private conversations who were granted anonymity to discuss them. The last-minute snags are pushing release of the stopgap into Monday, despite lawmakers hoping they could circulate the text Sunday.

GOP leaders have told lawmakers that Johnson wants to pass the entire funding measure and disaster package together, via suspension, according to two other people familiar with the matter. But that process requires a two-thirds majority, making the ag state Republicans’ votes even more critical.

House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) said Saturday that he will oppose any spending measure that leaves out the billions in extra aid farm state Republicans were seeking for farmers still reeling from Donald Trump’s 2018 trade war, inflation, a delayed five-year farm bill reauthorization and a raft of other economic pressures. Republicans in agriculture-heavy states and some Democrats have warned about a crippling economic crisis hitting rural America, which overwhelmingly supported Trump in the last election. [Pols emphasis]

[SIDE NOTE: You’re telling us that people in agriculture-heavy states who backed Donald Trump for President did so despite the fact that his policies screwed them once before and are likely to do so again? Weird!]

Back to POLITICO:

Farm district Republicans are not only incensed with Democrats for the deal’s collapse, but also with their own GOP leaders who opposed adding $14 billion in Inflation Reduction Act climate conservation funding into the farm bill budget for years to come. Johnson privately argued a majority of the GOP conference opposed such a move. He’s under intense pressure from ultraconservatives as his speakership hangs in the balance. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell also shocked Republicans by digging in on the matter in the final hours. [Pols emphasis]

The stopgap measure will still include a clean, one-year farm bill extension, but possibly without any additional economic aid or other add-ons agriculture lawmakers were seeking.

Speaker Johnson has regularly struggled to get Republicans on board with funding the federal government — often because of absurd unrelated demands — and has often needed the help of House Democrats to get something done. This tends to happen at the same time that Republicans try to blame Democrats for their inability to corral their own cats; it’s a ridiculous notion to blame the minority for the failures of the majority.

It’s also worth noting that a successful continuing resolution would only fund the federal government until March, which will complicate President-elect Trump’s plans for his first 100 days in office — particularly his boasting about fighting inflation. As CNN noted last week, Trump is already walking back his once-rosy economic predictions:

“When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” Trump continued. “We will drill, baby, drill,” he said, referring to increasing domestic oil production. “That’s going to bring down prices of everything.”…

…“It’s hard to bring things down once they’re up,” Trump said in his Time Magazine “Person of the Year” interview published Thursday, referring to grocery prices. “You know, it’s very hard…But I think that they will. I think that energy is going to bring them down.” [Pols emphasis]

Trump’s plan is to drill more for oil and natural gas — nevermind that the United States currently produces more oil than any other nation in history — and somehow use that revenue to lower the cost of groceries. (Don’t look at us to explain).

Republicans won’t officially take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House until early next year. But as we’ve seen for the last two years in the House, the problem has never been that we have too few Republicans in charge.