Spending fight turns to stopgap as House GOP stumbles
Source: The Hill
07/26/24 5:30 AM ET
House Republicans are turning their focus to a debate over whether to fund the government through December or into next year after their hopes of passing 12 full-year funding bills before the August recess collapsed.
With no one expecting the annual funding process to be complete by a Sept. 30 shutdown deadline, hard-line conservatives are advocating for a stopgap measure, also known as a continuing resolution (CR), that would run into March of next year in order to avoid being jammed with a massive spending package under a lame-duck president.
They want to avoid a December funding deadline that historically has teed up a massive omnibus spending bill negotiated by leaders in the House and Senate. Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), a spending cardinal and member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said he and other Republicans would prefer a CR into next year, calling the prospect of a trillion-dollar-plus omnibus a danger.
If the Democrats want to negotiate in good faith in December, we could always negotiate something in good faith, he added. But Id rather not see a December deadline.
Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/4793429-spending-stopgap-house-gop/
This is literally a radical shift in the LOON Caucus because they normally want to blow it all up rather than pass any kind of Continuing Resolution so they can "blame the Democrats". That has ALWAYS been their strategy going back to Newt Gingrich as SOH in the '90s (and I remember that shutdown because my agency was one of the few that actually had funding but our building had many other Departments and agencies in it and was empty save for a couple like us that also had funding - e.g., Treasury for Customs, etc.).
riversedge
(72,973 posts)Clouds Passing
(2,072 posts)a government shutdown just before the election. They know that would be political suicide.
sdfernando
(5,363 posts)...but things have changed with Kamala and an energized electorate. They seriously don't want to be tagged with shutting down the government right before the election.
Midnight Writer
(22,941 posts)BumRushDaShow
(141,429 posts)Because the entire 435-member House and 1/3rd of the Senate is up for re-election. So traditionally they DO take the month of August off "to campaign" and we'll see them back some time after Labor Day to fuss and fight over whether to do a C.R. or not. They ALSO have to do something about the Farm Bill, which itself is on an extension from last year when it expired.