President Joe Biden will spend Tuesday afternoon meeting with leaders of Congress in hopes of crafting a way to avoid a looming partial federal government shutdown. It’s the fourth time since last fall that the country faces a government shutdown. And for the third time, the onus falls on Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to figure out how he’s going to deliver the House and avert catastrophe. As of Monday evening, the odds were not in his favor.
Johnson rose to the speakership as the last man standing in a lengthy, damaging fight among Republicans last fall, in the aftermath of the first averted shutdown. A former darling of the House’s conservatives, as a candidate for speaker he promised an aggressive schedule to deliver wins in spending negotiations with the White House and Senate Democrats. Instead, Johnson has found himself again and again unable to cash the checks he wrote to his far-right flank and his fellow congressional leaders. The resulting penalties could cost him — and millions of Americans — dearly.
Johnson has found himself again and again unable to cash the checks he wrote to his far-right flank and his fellow congressional leaders.
As things stand, the government has been funded since October with a series of short-term spending bills, known as continuing resolutions, that hold funding at the same levels as last year. House Republicans have been trying to force Democrats to accept major spending cuts, despite struggling to pass even their own proposals on party-line votes. Upon his ascension, Johnson promised to get all the spending bills over the line with an aggressive calendar, and use the GOP’s unity as leverage to force Democrats to capitulate.
That hasn’t exactly been the case. After only a few weeks on the job, Johnson convinced skeptical Democrats to go along with a two-step “ladder” plan that split the government’s funding into two tranches. The first tier, which includes funding covered by four annual spending bills…
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