McConnell Says Stopgap Spending Bill Will ‘Obviously’ Be Needed

McConnell Says Stopgap Will ‘Obviously’ Be Needed

Even though they have now agreed to topline spending figures for 2024, lawmakers need to race with almost unprecedented speed if they want to pass full-year appropriations bills before a January 19 deadline. On that date, parts of the federal government will shut down if Congress fails to act to provide funding, and more agencies could close on February 2, when another tranche of funding runs out.

Doubts are growing that lawmakers can complete their work in time, and on Tuesday Senate Minority Whip John Thune stated what is becoming increasingly obvious: Congress will need to pass another short-term funding bill to avoid a government shutdown.

"The idea that we're going to get those [initial appropriations bills] done in next week or even for that matter by Feb. 2 — which is the second tranche of the second eight bills — I think it's unrealistic," Thune told reporters. The South Dakota Republican said that a continuing resolution to provide short-term funding would likely need to run into a "March timeframe" to provide enough time to write and pass the 12 annual appropriations bills.

Some lawmakers expressed agreement with Thune, including Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnel, who told reporters, "Obviously we’re going to have to pass a CR." Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia also agreed, while warning House Republicans to avoid a government shutdown. "I’ve lived through more than a few shutdowns," she said. "A shutdown is a road to nowhere. Nobody wins in a shutdown, and particularly the American people."

Still, not everyone is on board. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska who sits on the appropriations committee, said she saw no need for more time. "What does that do? That lets the pressure off of everybody to set our numbers, to get cracking, to move things through the process," she told Politico.

More headaches for Johnson: The need to pass a continuing resolution could be a problem for Speaker Mike Johnson. In November, Johnson said he was "done with short term CRs," suggesting that he’d rather see a shutdown than extend short-term funding once again. However, Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman and Andrew Desiderio report that resistance to another CR is fading among House GOP leaders, who are coming around to the idea that another funding bill will be necessary to avoid the political damage that would come with a government shutdown.

That may not sit well with Johnson’s critics on the right, who have been sharply critical of his performance on the 2024 spending agreement – an agreement that is essentially the same as the one that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy agreed to last year. One GOP House member told Punchbowl that there are "significant concerns" about Johnson’s "ability to jump to this level and deliver conservative wins." Some conservatives think Johnson is "way, way over his head," the unnamed lawmaker said, adding that "Mike is struggling to grow into the job and is just getting rolled even more than McCarthy did."

Republican Rep. Chip Roy of Texas told CNN that he is "very disappointed" in the 2024 spending agreement agreed to by Johnson. "I wish Speaker Johnson weren’t doing this," he said. "And hopefully we can try to figure out what we can do to change it in the next few days."

Asked if he would support an effort to remove Johnson from the speakership, in a repeat of the uprising against McCarthy in October, Roy said, "That’s not the road I prefer." But he didn’t rule it out, saying "we’ll see what happens this week."

Another thing that can’t be ruled out is a government shutdown. One-time speaker candidate Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio said Tuesday that he wants to include border restrictions in the appropriations bills – something that Democrats will almost certainly reject. If the government shuts down because of the inclusion of border issues in the funding bills, "that's on them," Jordan told CNN’s Manu Raju.

The bottom line: The good vibes from this weekend’s topline spending agreement seem to have dissipated pretty quickly, leaving lawmakers with just 10 days to figure out how to fund the government and prevent a shutdown in January.

Border Deal ‘Doubtful’ This Week as Talks Bog Down

Sen. James Lankford, the lead Republican negotiator working on a bipartisan border security deal, said Sunday that he hoped to be able to release legislative text of the agreement this week. By Monday, that optimism had evaporated. Lankford told reporters that talks had bogged down and a deal this week seemed doubtful.

"There's too many unanswered issues that are still there. There's too many unresolved parts. But I would say as recently as yesterday, I was thinking I think we're close. But in all of our meetings last night and today, we're not," Lankford told reporters, according to Politico. "I’m doubtful about later on this week … I think it’s more likely the next."

The impasse reportedly centers on the issue of parole authority, which enables a president to temporarily admit migrants on humanitarian grounds. Republicans want to severely restrict such authority while Democrats and the Biden administration insist it must be preserved. See more details here.

Why it matters: The holdup on a border deal isn’t surprising given the differences and pressures involved and the fact that immigration reforms have long bedeviled lawmakers — and further complicated by some Republicans’ expressed reluctance to help President Joe Biden in the runup to the 2024 election, not to mention the House GOP push to impeach both Biden and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

But beyond the implications at the border, the difficulties in reaching a deal are also threatening to delay or derail billions in additional aid to Ukraine and Israel. Sen. Chris Murphy, the top Senate Democratic negotiator, told reporters Monday that "many of us warned that it’s not a good idea to condition the salvation of Ukraine and Europe on our ability to craft a comprehensive immigration reform. Period."

What’s next: While talks continue, a January 19 deadline to avoid a partial government shutdown is rapidly approaching, with another shutdown deadline on February 2. Hardline House Republicans like Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio are pushing to insert their border security changes into the must-pass government funding bills. Disgruntled conservatives, upset about House Speaker Mike Johnson’s 2024 topline spending deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, will be ramping up pressure on Johnson to deliver conservative wins. And tomorrow, the House Homeland Security Committee will hold its first Mayorkas impeachment hearing.

Chart of the Day: Disasters Rising

As severe weather continues to batter much of the eastern and southern part of the country at the start of the new year, the National Centers for Environmental Information released its list of billion-dollar disasters for 2023. According to NCEI data, the U.S. set a record last year, with 28 disasters that caused damages of more than $1 billion each.

"While it wasn’t the most expensive year overall – the costliest years included multiple hurricane strikes – it had the highest number of billion-dollar storms, floods, droughts and fires of any year since counting began in 1980, with six more than any other year, accounting for inflation," writes Shuang-Ye Wu, a professor of environmental geosciences at the University of Dayton.

Wu says that global warming is behind much of the increase in costly disasters, as rapidly warming polar regions destabilize weather patterns. "In sum, a warmer world is a more violent world," Wu writes, "with the additional heat fueling increasingly more extreme weather events."

Number of the Day: $10 Trillion

Although it would certainly result in almost unimaginable horror, military hawks in the U.S. are increasingly talking about the possibility of a shooting war with China over Taiwan. Analysts at Bloomberg on Tuesday considered the possible cost of such a terrible event, finding that it would likely run into the trillions.

"War over Taiwan would have a cost in blood and treasure so vast that even those unhappiest with the status quo have reason not to risk it," they said. "Bloomberg Economics estimate the price tag at around $10 trillion, equal to about 10% of global GDP — dwarfing the blow from the war in Ukraine, Covid pandemic and Global Financial Crisis."

Searching for a silver lining in their analysis, they said the upside is that they show that the cost "would be so high for all players that the incentive to avoid it is strong."

Fiscal News Roundup

• Congressional Leaders Set to Take On Spending, Border – Politico
• Thune: Congress May Need Short-Term Funding Patch Until March – Politico
• McConnell Says Congress ‘Obviously’ Must Pass Short-Term Spending Stopgap – The Hill
• Border and Immigration Deal 'Doubtful' This Week Amid Bogged-Down Talks – Politico
• Border Bill May Delayed by Stubborn Sticking Point – Semafor
• Speaker Johnson Faces Conservative Unrest Over Funding Deal – The Hill
• Chip Roy on Johnson Ouster: ‘That’s Not the Road I Prefer’ – The Hill
• Inflation Is on Path to Reaching Fed’s 2% Target, Bostic Says – Bloomberg
• JPMorgan CEO Dimon ‘Skeptical’ of ‘Goldilocks’ Economic Scenario – The Hill
• Global Economy Headed for Worst Half-Decade in 30 Years, World Bank Warns – Washington Post
• Trump Says He Hopes Economy Crashes in Next 12 Months: ‘I Don’t Want to Be Herbert Hoover’ – The Hill
• Pelosi on Trump Hoping Economy Crashes in 2024: ‘Doesn’t Know What That Means to America’s Working Families’ – The Hill
• Abolish the IRS? How Republicans Are Keeping Up Attacks on the Tax Agency – CNN

Views and Analysis

• 5 Things to Know About Speaker Johnson’s Spending Deal With Democrats – Aris Folley, The Hill
• House Republicans Are Right Back Where They Started on Spending – Hayes Brown, MSNBC
• Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss – David Dayen, American Prospect
• The Fed Is Taming Inflation. Politicians Want to Make It Harder Next Time – Catherine Rampell, Washington Post
• Is Poor Economic Sentiment All About MAGA? – Paul Krugman, New York Times
• How to Fix America’s Immigration Crisis – Steven Rattner and Maureen White, New York Times
• The Battle for Joe Biden’s Economic Soul – Steve Clemons, Semafor
• Learn From Clinton: Biden Needs to Pivot on Immigration – Gregory J. Wallance, The Hill
• Failure to Aid Ukraine Risks Disaster — for Kyiv and the U.S. – Max Boot, Washington Post