US House Speaker Johnson floats two-step measure to avert gov’t shutdown
- U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson unveiled a Republican stopgap spending measure yesterday aimed at averting a government shutdown a week from now, but the measure quickly ran into opposition from lawmakers from both parties in Congress.
Unlike ordinary continuing resolutions, or “CRs,” that fund federal agencies for a specific period, the measure announced by Johnson would fund some parts of the government until Jan. 19 and others until Feb. 2. House Republicans hope to pass the measure on Tuesday.
“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement after announcing the plan to House Republicans in a conference call.
The House Republican stopgap contained no supplemental funding such as aid for Israel or Ukraine.
The House and Democratic-led Senate must agree on a spending vehicle that President Joe Biden can sign into law by Friday, or risk a fourth partial government shutdown in a decade that would close national parks, disrupt pay for as many as 4 million federal workers and disrupt a swath of activities from financial oversight to scientific research.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a release that the proposal was “just a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns.” She said “House Republicans are wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties.”
Johnson, the top Republican in Congress, unveiled his stopgap a day after Moody’s, the last major credit ratings agency to maintain a top “AAA” rating on the U.S. government, lowered its outlook on the nation’s credit to “negative” from “stable,” citing political polarization in Congress on spending as a danger to the nation’s fiscal health.