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Post by Webster on Jan 8, 2024 18:41:35 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Deal reached to avert government shutdown, but will right wing torpedo it?After what must have been an exhausting weekend for negotiators, Democratic and Republican leaders announced yesterday afternoon a framework to keep the government funded over the months ahead and avert shutdowns that would have begun as soon as 19 January. But almost immediately, rightwing Republican lawmakers, several of whom orchestrated the ousting of Kevin McCarthy as speaker of the House last year for agreeing to a similar deal with Democrats, objected. The proposed deal, which slashes some of Joe Biden’s budget priorities but doesn’t contain the deep cuts some conservatives would like to see, will probably win bipartisan support in the Senate and House of Representatives, but the rightwing opposition could potentially complicate its chances of passage. Over the course of today, we may find out more about how seriously the rightwing is in their opposition to the deal, and what other obstacles it may face to passage.
Conservative caucus calls budget deal 'even worse than we thought'The signs of trouble for the government funding agreement arrived not even two hours after its was announced, when the rightwing House Freedom Caucus called the proposal “even worse than we thought”: The group of far-right Republicans referred to a late December letter in which they said, “Republicans must truly reduce programmatic spending” in the budget covering the 2024 fiscal year, which extends through September. While they didn’t outline exactly what spending cuts they wish to see, typical Republican targets include social aid programs such as Snap food benefits and early childhood education programs, as well as hiring for certain jobs and some federal government agencies.
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Post by Webster on Jan 8, 2024 18:42:07 GMT -5
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Post by Webster on Jan 8, 2024 19:10:21 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Republican House speaker Johnson praises proposal to cut IRS, Covid-19 funding, says deal 'will not satisfy everyone'In a letter to colleagues announcing a tentative agreement with Democrats on government spending, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson noted that the deal “will not satisfy everyone”, while pointing out that it would cut the budget of the IRS tax authority as well as rescind aid money allocated to respond to Covid-19. “After many weeks of dialogue and debate, we have secured hard-fought concessions to unlock the [fiscal year] 24 topline numbers and allow the Appropriations Committee to finally begin negotiating and completing the twelve annual appropriations bills,” the speaker wrote yesterday. He noted, “the concessions we achieved will include an additional $10 billion in cuts to the IRS mandatory funding (for a total of $20 billion), which was a key part of the Democrats’ ‘Inflation Reduction Act.’ In addition, we will cut $6.1 billion from the Biden’s Administration’s continued COVID-era slush funds, which we achieved despite fierce opposition from the White House. The result is real savings to American taxpayers and real reductions in the federal bureaucracy.” Joe Biden and congressional Democrats won approval for $80b in funding for the IRS in 2022, but Republicans have proposed rescinding it, even though doing so would increase the federal budget deficit. “While work on finalizing appropriations must move quickly now, it is important to note that negotiations will be informed by the most robust House and Senate appropriations process we have seen in years, driven by the hard work and pressure exerted by this Republican Conference,” the speaker concluded.
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Post by Webster on Jan 8, 2024 19:31:38 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Here’s more from Reuters on what we know about the plan to fund the government announced by Democratic and Republican leaders in Congress over the weekend: The top Democrat and Republican in the US Congress on Sunday agreed on a $1.59tn spending deal, setting up a race for bitterly divided lawmakers to pass the bills that would appropriate the money before the government begins to shut down this month.
Since early last year, House of Representatives and Senate appropriations committees had been unable to agree on the 12 annual bills needed to fund the government for the fiscal year that began 1 October because of disagreements over the total amount of money to be spent.
When lawmakers return on Monday from a holiday break, those panels will launch intensive negotiations over how much various agencies, from the agriculture and transportation departments to Homeland Security and health and human services, get to spend in the fiscal year that runs through 30 September.
They face a 19 January deadline for the first set of bills to move through Congress and a 2 February deadline for the remainder of them.
There were already some disagreements between the two parties as to what they had agreed to. Republican House speaker Mike Johnson said in a statement that the top-line figure includes $886bn for defense and $704bn for non-defense spending. But Democratic Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, in a separate statement, said the non-defense spending figure will be $772.7bn.
Last month, Congress authorized $886bn for the Department of Defense this fiscal year, which Democratic president Joe Biden signed into law. Appropriators will also now fill in the details on how that will be parceled out.
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Post by Webster on Jan 12, 2024 16:22:14 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Republican House speaker Johnson says he will stick to budget deal with Democrats - reportA crisis in Congress appears to have been averted, after the House speaker, Mike Johnson, said he will follow an agreement reached with Democrats over the weekend regarding how much to authorize the government to spend this year. Punchbowl News reports that Johnson, after a heated encounter with rightwing lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus, said the deal will hold: The speaker’s statement comes after reports emerged yesterday that he is considering backing away from the deal with Democrats after hearing objections from the party’s most conservative lawmakers. Doing so would likely cause a partial government shutdown beginning 19 January, and could also undermine separate negotiations over approving military aid to Israel and Ukraine, and changing immigration policies to stop migrants from crossing the southern border.
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Post by Webster on Jan 16, 2024 17:26:35 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Joe Biden has invited congressional leaders, key committee leaders and ranking members to the White House tomorrow to discuss the supplemental funding bill relating to funds to support Ukraine and Israel, relating to US national security issues, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said. The White House press briefing has just begun and Jean-Pierre confirmed the meeting, which was first reported by Punchbowl News earlier. Reporters are asking now if a deal might be closer on a spending agreement. Legislation has been stalled since early December after Senate Republicans blocked a funding bill that included aid for Ukraine and Israel. That vote came one day after Senate Democrats formally unveiled the $111bn supplemental security bill, reflecting the funding request that Joe Biden issued in October to provide assistance to the US’s allies abroad, the Guardian reported at the time.
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Post by Webster on Jan 18, 2024 18:52:24 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Following the Senate’s passage of a stopgap funding bill shortly before a shutdown deadline on Thursday, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer released the following statement in which he hailed the bill’s passage: “It’s good news for every American, especially our veterans, parents and children, farmers and small businesses, all of whom would have felt the sting of a shutdown.”
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Post by Webster on Jan 19, 2024 18:49:42 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden signs stopgap government funding bill - White HouseThe move follows the House of Representatives passing the short-term spending bill late on Thursday, sending the legislation to the president’s desk with just two days left before government funding was to run out, in the latest nail-biter. The bipartisan legislation averted a government shutdown that would have begun at one minute past midnight tonight. The bill, which represents the third stopgap spending measure of this fiscal year, will extend government funding at current levels until 1 March for some government agencies and until 8 March for others. The House vote came hours after the Senate approved the bill in a vote of 77 to 18, following bipartisan negotiations that stretched into late Wednesday evening. The Senate majority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, praised the bill as a vital measure that would allow lawmakers more time to negotiate over full-year appropriations bills. “Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for the country, for our veterans, for parents and children, and for farmers and small businesses – all of whom would have felt the sting had the government shut down,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “And this is what the American people want to see: both sides working together and governing responsibly. No chaos. No spectacle. No shutdown.”
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Post by Webster on Feb 26, 2024 18:57:39 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Biden to hold talks aimed at preventing government shutdownJoe Biden is planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington tomorrow as he once again tries to head off the looming prospect of a partial government shutdown at midnight on Friday. The US president aims to impress upon leading congressional representatives and senators from both parties that there is increasing “urgency” to pass a funding bill this week, the White House said yesterday. Biden is also intending to discuss the stalled national security bill that provides assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, Reuters reported. Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, the leading Democrat on Capitol Hill, issued a statement saying that no deal has been struck – while calling on the Republican House Speaker, Mike Johnson, to “step up” and agree to a compromise. A short term spending bill was passed in January in a bipartisan vote after fraught negotiations, and signed by Biden. That’s about to run out.
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Post by Webster on Feb 26, 2024 18:58:46 GMT -5
(The Guardian) House Speaker Mike Johnson is under pressure from Democrats on Capitol Hill to keep the government funded (as well as Ukraine’s resistance to Russia and other needs) and under pressure from the right wingers of his own Republican party in the House to be the speaker of “no” when it comes to anything the Democrats want. In this atmosphere, Johnson posted on X/Twitter yesterday that he hoped to reach a conclusion on government spending “as soon as possible”. He’s in a public ding-dong with Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer amid efforts to deal with the prospect of a partial government shutdown by the end of Friday. Schumer said in a letter to colleagues last night: Unfortunately, extreme House Republicans have shown they’re more capable of causing chaos than passing legislation. It is my sincere hope that in the face of a disruptive shutdown that would hurt our economy and make American families less safe, Speaker Johnson will step up to once again buck the extremists in his caucus and do the right thing.Johnson posted, in part: Despite the counterproductive rhetoric in Leader Schumer’s letter, the House has worked nonstop, and is continuing to work in good faith, to reach agreement with the Senate on compromise government funding bills in advance of the deadlines. Our position is that of the American people and our mission is to take steps to rein in Democrats’ overspending and policies that are harming the economy, raising prices, and making everyday life harder for our constituents.Reuters writes that funding is due to run out on 1 March for some federal agencies, including the Department of Transportation, while others like the Defense Department face a 8 March deadline.
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Post by Webster on Feb 26, 2024 19:00:19 GMT -5
(The Guardian) The US Congress is lurching into a new week of political chaos. Lawmakers are not only trying to avoid a partial government shutdown but also deal with hard right House Republicans’ push for an election-year impeachment trial of the Biden administration’s top official dealing with the US-Mexico border, homeland security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Reuters reports. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives is also grasping for a way forward on vital US aid to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, and plans to hear closed-door testimony from Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, in an impeachment probe that has failed so far to turn up evidence of wrongdoing by the president. Congress has been characterized by Republican brinkmanship and muddled priorities over the past year, more so since Donald Trump undermined a bipartisan border deal in the Senate and now wants aid to US allies extended as loans. Almost two months have passed since Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer agreed on a $1.59 trillion discretionary spending level for the fiscal year that began on Oct. 1, without the needed legislation to follow. -- It’s becoming more chaotic. The longer Congress is dysfunctional, the further they fall behind on very time-sensitive, high-priority legislation,” said Brian Riedl, senior fellow at the right-leaning Manhattan Institute.Some hardliners are threatening to oust Johnson as speaker, if the Christian conservative allows a vote on the $95bn foreign aid bill that passed the Senate with overwhelming bipartisan support. Joe Biden plans to meet with Schumer, Johnson and other congressional leaders on Tuesday.
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Post by Webster on Feb 27, 2024 16:54:55 GMT -5
(The Guardian) House Freedom Caucus decries government funding negotiationsAs is always the case, just because Congress’s leaders reach a deal doesn’t mean all of their lawmakers will support it – a fact that may be particularly important in the House of Representatives, which the GOP controls by just two seats. There is no indication that Republican speaker Mike Johnson sees a government shutdown as advantageous, but should a deal be agreed, he may run into trouble with his party’s most conservative members. On X, Chip Roy, a Texas lawmaker and member of the rightwing House Freedom Caucus, accused Johnson’s team of having “NO PLAN TO FIGHT” for aggressive government spending cuts that Democrats, who control the Senate, would probably never agree to. It’s unclear at this point how much of a problem Roy and his counterparts’ opposition could pose, since government funding bills are typically compromises that attract votes from both parties. Here’s the start of Roy’s lengthy thread of objections:
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Post by Webster on Feb 27, 2024 17:03:40 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Punchbowl News this morning published a rundown of where Congress’s leaders are when it comes to the government funding debate, which offers some interesting details of the potential winners and losers, should a shutdown occur. Perhaps most interesting was their observation about Mike Johnson, who was elevated to House speaker in the wake of Kevin McCarthy’s unprecedented ouster, but doesn’t have much experience with negotiating government funding, and has perhaps the most to lose: Johnson has never been part of a high-stakes negotiation. He’s drawn illogical lines in the sand – no more CRs – and then had to back down. He’s refused to take positions on big issues. Other top House Republicans are growing tired of him and have no faith in his leadership.
But we’re beginning to see Johnson edge closer to reality. He told House Republicans on a conference call Friday that the compromise he’s negotiating with the rest of the Big Four doesn’t include any major policy wins for the GOP. That’s true.
… Johnson is going to have a choice to make soon. He can put the compromise bill or package on the floor and pass it with Democratic votes under suspension of the rules, a move that could cost him his job. He can pass another stopgap bill to avert a shutdown. Or Johnson can allow the government to shut down, which also may cost him his job.Joe Biden convened the meeting of Congress’s leaders at the White House, but according to Punchbowl, he could be the main beneficiary if the government actually shut down: Sagging in the polls with his political future murky as ever, Biden would be the clear winner of a funding lapse. Biden is trying to make the case that Republicans, with former President Donald Trump as their likely nominee, can’t govern. A shutdown would help that case.
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Post by Webster on Feb 27, 2024 17:12:22 GMT -5
(The Guardian) 'We're going to prevent a shutdown,' Republican House speaker Johnson saysAs he departed the Capitol to meet with Joe Biden and other leaders of Congress at the White House, Republican House speaker Mike Johnson signaled to Fox News that he was looking to forge an agreement with Democrats to prevent a government shutdown: In addition to Democrats, Johnson will also need to placate Republican lawmakers who want him to cut government spending and use the budget negotiations to take a hard line against Biden’s policies.
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Post by Webster on Feb 27, 2024 17:19:51 GMT -5
(The Guardian) Schumer says 'making good progress' to avoid shutdown, 'intense' negotiations with Johnson on Ukraine aidThe congressional leaders who met with Joe Biden at the White House made “good progress” on avoiding a government shutdown, the Senate’s Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said after the meeting. The group, which also included Republican Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries, also pressed the House speaker, Republican Mike Johnson, to support further aid to Ukraine, a discussion Schumer noted was particularly “intense”. “We’re making good progress and we’re hopeful we can get this done quickly,” Schumer said, adding that Johnson “said unequivocally he wants to avoid a government shutdown”. McConnell along with Biden and Congress’s top Democrats are all supporters of aid to Ukraine, but Johnson has waffled, even turning down a package of hardline immigration policy changes Democrats had agreed to in order to win Republican support for Kyiv. “The meeting on Ukraine was one of the most intense I’ve ever encountered in my many meetings in the Oval Office,” Schumer said. “We said to the speaker, ‘get it done.’”
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