November 14, 2023
That was the new House Speaker this morning explaining to the media why passing another kick-the-can down the road continuing resolution to keep the government from shutting down is the only option. Basically lawmakers are tired of being on Capitol Hill. By the way – he says 10 weeks – but don’t forget the days and weeks here or there in those 10 weeks that lawmakers were not in Washington DC.
I told you in this video yesterday all about the House Speaker’s novel government funding plan that would avoid a government shutdown this week but give us two more. One in mid-January and another in early February of next year.
It’s a plan that keeps the government spending limits the same. There are no increases, but there are also no spending cuts. And that has really pissed off several of his own conservative republicans who say he’s surrendering.
So – you’re probably wondering – is the government going to shut down or not? Well – the House is going to vote on the Speaker’s clean, laddered, CR today – again, if you don’t know what that entails or how that works go see this video.
But can it pass? We know the Speaker does not want a government shutdown on his hands during the holidays and he knows he doesn’t have the Republican votes he needs to pass it because their majority is so slim – so he’s going to have to rely on House a lot of democrat votes to get it over the finish line. It’s the same move – that resulted in the Kevin McCarthy being fired from his job as Speaker last month …but Speaker Johnson says it’s smarter to keep things as they are and live to fight the spending cut battles another day.
Watch the Speaker’s press conference here.
