Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., meets with reporters ahead of a Wednesday visit by Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu who will address a joint meeting of Congress, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, July 23, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Friday announced yet another plan to avert a government shutdown.
“Yeah, yeah, we have a plan. We’re expecting votes this morning, so you all stay tuned. We’ve got a plan,” Johnson said Friday morning as he entered the Capitol building.
The government will shut down if Congress fails to pass a spending bill by the end of Friday.
The House rejected a short-term spending bill after Republican leadership scrapped a compromise plan with Democrats that was riddled with Democrat carveouts, and benefits to Big Pharma, among other controversial issues.
Breitbart News’s Bradley Jaye wrote:
An astonishing 38 Republicans voted against the hastily assembled, Trump-endorsed deal, with nine not voting.
Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance stepped in Wednesday afternoon to drive the final stake in the heart of a previous deal negotiated by House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democrats. Support for that deal was deteriorating rapidly ahead of Trump taking action to reframe the debate, insisting the deal should have included a debt limit increase to take the tricky issue off his administration’s plate next Congress.
The new deal removed over a thousand pages of pork and other provisions unrelated to keeping the government open.
House Freedom Caucus chairman Andy Harris (R-MD) said on Friday morning he would accept a clean stop-gap spending bill, known as a continuing resolution (CR).
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) said, “We’re not cutting deals with Democrats.”
She added that there will be a plan “very similar to President Trump’s plan yesterday.”
President-elect Donald Trump said that if the government were to shutdown, it should happen on President Joe Biden’s watch.
It remains unclear if Democrats and Biden would approve of clean CR to continue funding the government.
“If there is going to be a shutdown of government, let it begin now, under the Biden Administration, not after January 20th, under ‘TRUMP.’ This is a Biden problem to solve, but if Republicans can help solve it, they will!” Trump wrote.
While many in Washington, DC, have fretted about the potential impact of a government shutdown, Breitbart News Economics Editor John Carney wrote that shutdowns barely impact the economy, as evidenced by the five-week shutdown in late 2018.
