Speaker Johnson attributes clunky spending process to Congress’ lack of ‘muscle memory’

House Speaker Mike Johnson hopes to put the current spending cycle to bed and shift gears to next year’s delayed process this week, but he said Congress’ lack of “muscle memory” is causing a spending slowdown.

Lawmakers on Wednesday will vote on the first of two spending packages, which includes six bills that fund Veterans Affairs, interior, agriculture, transportation, energy and water, and the Justice Department.

Mr. Johnson’s decision to move forward with the packages is not exactly what Republicans promised to do nearly a year ago, but fiscal gridlock has forced Congress to move ahead.

When House Republicans began the fiscal 2024 spending cycle, they promised to pass spending legislation one by one —  a process legally required of Congress. But Congress hasn’t done that in decades, and the current spending fight has been filled with the growing pains of trying to return to that old process.

“The reason that it is so difficult to do is because Washington has no muscle memory on how to do that,” Mr. Johnson told reporters on Wednesday.

Mr. Johnson said lawmakers trying to change the spending process have been “victimized by the tradition of Congress,” which is to pass massive, catchall spending bills called omnibuses.

Dividing that massive bill into two six-bill packages takes what Mr. Johnson calls “breaking the fever” of relying on omnibuses the past few decades. Indeed, Congress has not passed bills one by one since the late 1990s, and only four times since 1977.

Now Mr. Johnson is putting the $459 billion package to a vote and will probably rely on Democrats to pass the spending measures. That’s because members of his right flank in the House Freedom Caucus see the move as being no different than relying on an omnibus.

“The House Freedom Caucus opposes the $1.65 trillion omnibus spending bill, which will be decided in two halves, the first being brought to the floor this week under suspension of the rules,” the conservative group said in a statement. “Even in the face of $34.4 trillion in national debt, the omnibus will bust the bipartisan spending caps signed into law less than a year ago and is loaded with hundreds of pages of earmarks worth billions.”

Congress will need to pass the first package by Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown. After that, lawmakers will vote on the second six-bill bundle ahead of another deadline to fund the government on March 22.

That package is expected to be released in the coming weeks. In the meantime, Mr. Johnson already has his sights set on fiscal 2025, where he again hopes to push ahead with passing spending legislation individually. However, Congress is already months behind in that process.