Congress was six months late passing this year’s government funding and the final product left House Republicans feeling angry and betrayed — and they expect more of the same disappointments with the spending bills due for the fast-approaching fiscal 2025.
House Republicans vowed to break the cycle of using colossal spending packages to fund the government but ultimately settled for a couple of big bills that passed with a majority of Democratic votes.
House Speaker Mike Johnson and his Republicans will face many of the same challenges and more to pass spending for the next fiscal year that begins Oct. 1: a paper-thin majority, a shortened timeline and the pressures of the campaign season.
The most likely scenario is a stopgap bill to push the spending fight beyond the November elections.
“I dare anybody tell me you’re gonna go to Vegas and bet that we’re gonna get anything other than a [stopgap] in September,” Rep. Chip Roy, Texas Republican, said.
Mr. Johnson, Louisiana Republican, promised to adhere to regular order, believing that putting forth two massive spending packages instead of one was a step in the right direction.
Mr. Roy said that he was ready and open to actually passing spending bills one by one, but he does not want the work to be “for show.”
He wants concrete action on passing conservative spending bills that address key GOP priorities such as border security without side deals and gimmicks. But Mr. Roy does not expect that to be the case and does not want to waste his time going through the motions.
“OK, well, I can vote ’no’ without having to do all that work,” he said.
Rep. Dusty Johnson, South Dakota Republican, said that the goal of passing bills one at a time was always “aspirational,” and that it would take a long time to fix the spending process in Washington.
Viewing the upcoming fiscal year as the stage to make transformative change was looking at the situation through the “wrong lens,” he said.
For Republicans to make more progress, he said, they would need to stay unified. That’s a tall order in a conference wracked by divisions that only deepened in the last spending fight.
“The important thing is that Republicans remain unified and focused on understanding that progress is going to be made bit by bit,” Mr. Johnson said. “Anybody who’s so naive that they think this town can be fixed overnight is too naive to serve in Congress.”
Most Republicans are less optimistic.
Rep. Max Miller, Ohio Republican, predicted more infighting and dissatisfaction for his party with just six months to get the job done.
“I mean it’s taken us 15, 16 months to get [2024 spending] through,” he said. “You don’t have that time for the second round.”
• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.
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