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President-elect Donald Trump, escorted by House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, for a meeting with the House GOP conference, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington. Associated Press Photo by Alex Brandon Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-Benton, joined by House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, touts Republican wins as he meets with reporters on the steps of the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Nov.
12, 2024. Congress returned to work this week to begin what is known as a lame-duck session, that period between Election Day and the end of the two-year congressional term. Associated Press Photo by J.
Scott Applewhite Facebook Twitter WhatsApp SMS Email Print Copy article link Save WASHINGTON — The U.S. House left town Thursday without coming up with a plan to handle the annual budget, which they need to figure out by Dec.
20 or much of the federal government will shut down. True, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Benton, was busy last week dealing with new bathroom rules in response to demands from some GOP hardliners reacting to the election of the first transgender representative. And he needed time to stop the release of a House Ethics investigation into President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of Rep.
Matt Gaetz, R-Florida, as attorney general. Gaetz withdrew Thursday. When the lame-duck 118th Congress returns Dec.
2, they will have 12 days scheduled for work to consider an additional $98.4 billion in disaster relief as well as extensions on flood insurance and the Farm Bill. The biggest looming issue is funding government agencies for the fiscal year that began Oct.
1. The Biden administration requested a 1% increase in discretionary spending for this fiscal year. In September, Congress narrowly avoided a shutdown by extending funding authorization to December.
Johnson now is talking about a continuing resolution that would punt the decision into 2025, when Trump is in the White House and Republicans hold majorities in both the Senate and the House, thereby providing an easier path to creating a budget more in liking with GOP wants. Johnson told Fox News last week that he’s hopeful of cutting a deal, but he’d back a temporary measure that would push the decision off until “the first part of next year.” Johnson’s number two, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, on the other hand indicated to Fox News Digital that House Republicans want to send to the Senate all 12 annual appropriations bills for individual agencies.
This really isn’t a schism between the two buddies from LSU, who have been operating in tandem since Johnson became speaker in October 2023. What’s really going on is that House leaders are trotting out possible scenarios while waiting to see what Trump wants to do, according to two staffers speaking anonymously about confidential meetings. Trump hasn’t indicated whether he wants a short-term or long-term “continuing resolution” or to just get this fiscal year’s budget out of the way.
It took well into last March before Congress could pass the $6.7 trillion discretionary budget for the fiscal year that ended six months later in September. Both Scalise and Johnson want the GOP-dominated 119th Congress to burst out of the gate in January and pass an extension to Trump’s 2017 tax cut, approve strict limitations on immigration and expand oil and gas production.
Dealing with this year’s fiscal budget would chew up time. Republicans are talking about cutting a couple trillion dollars or so out of the budget, including rolling back programs that give more people food stamps, disallowing federal welfare benefits for immigrants and ending student loan forgiveness projects. All of that would be opposed by Democrats and some Republicans.
The Democratic and Republican heads of the Senate and House appropriations committees say they want to finalize the spending bills before Dec. 20. The timing is such that the most likely scenario would be one big take-it-or-leave-it bill, called an omnibus, that includes all 12 spending bills for individual agencies.
“There should be no drama,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, told reporters Thursday. Republicans and Democrats already agree on the “top line” numbers, that is, how much total money will be spent, and could get on with cutting a deal. Johnson and other conservatives have opposed omnibuses in the past and may opt to wait until next year.
Even holding the House and Senate majorities in January, Republicans may find budget cutting a tall order. As of Friday, Republicans hold 219 of the 435 House seats, one more than necessary for a majority, and Democrats have 213, with the results of three races still to be decided, according to The New York Times . Republicans in the Senate will hold 53 seats come January, and Democrats 47, meaning a loss of four GOP votes dooms a bill.
Plus, a lot of legislation needs 60 votes to pass in the Senate. How the funding issues are resolved is yet to be determined, outgoing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, told reporters Thursday before the Senate left on its Thanksgiving vacation. “We’ll just see how it plays out,” he said.
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