Government spending brawl, Hunter Biden contempt vote loom as lawmakers return to Washington

WASHINGTON (CN) — It may be a new year, but it’s nothing but the hits for Congress this week, as lawmakers return to the nation’s capital to consider yet another government spending bill that has House Republicans squabbling once again.

With just over a week left before the first part of the “laddered” stopgap budget, negotiated in the fall by Democrats and Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, is set to expire, congressional leaders over the weekend unveiled a compromise spending plan aimed at funding the government for the rest of 2024.

The measure, a compromise between Johnson and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, authorizes roughly $1.6 trillion in spending, split between the defense budget and other government spending. In exchange, the bill rolls back more than $6 billion in Covid-19 emergency funding and further slashes a budget boost authorized for the Internal Revenue Service in 2022.

Despite that, the proposed budget had already drawn flak from some of the GOP’s most right-leaning members.

Virginia Representative Bob Good wrote in a statement Sunday night that the compromise measure provided “no significant policy wins” for Republicans and called it “nothing but another loss for America.”

Good argued that the proposed bill funds government programs at a level billions of dollars higher than a debt ceiling measure negotiated last spring by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy — a decision that would ultimately contribute to the former Republican leader’s ouster in the fall.

“At some point, having the House majority has to matter,” the Virginia congressman wrote.

South Carolina Representative Ralph Norman, writing in a Monday post on X, formerly Twitter, agreed with his colleague.

“If this is the best Republicans can do, there’s no hope of ever balancing our budget or securing the border,” he said.

The proposed spending bill has also drawn the ire of the House Freedom Caucus, Congress’s hardline conservative voting bloc, which called the measure “a total failure.” The Freedom Caucus has previously demanded that government spending return to pre-pandemic levels, and that any bill to fund federal programs be packaged alongside sweeping border security legislation.

Johnson, who ascended to the speakership in October after nearly a month of Republican infighting, has so far failed to secure any of those concessions from Democrats.

The newly-minted speaker last punted on budget cuts in November, opting instead to forge ahead with a no-strings-attached stopgap spending bill which split government funding into two sections. Johnson argued at the time that his “laddered” approach would split necessary federal programs, such as agriculture, energy and military construction, from more controversial supplemental spending.

Some Democrats, meanwhile, said this week that it was time to press forward and set Sunday’s budget compromise in stone.

“House Republicans wasted the entire first extension of federal funding, and most of the second, arguing over 2024 funding levels they agreed to last June,” Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro wrote in a statement Sunday night. The House Appropriations Committee ranking member was referring to budget targets set in the debt ceiling measure made law over the summer.

DeLauro added, however, that she was “infuriated” by the proposed cuts to IRS funding and the rollback of Covid-19 emergency spending.

“Democrats will not accept any Republican poison pill policy changes,” she wrote.

In a statement published Sunday, President Biden said that the proposed spending plan “moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown” and touted the measure’s adherence to the debt ceiling bill’s funding targets.

The White House urged congressional Republicans to “stop threatening to shut down the government” and to “do their job.”

Part of the existing stopgap budget keeping the government afloat is set to expire Jan. 19. The next tranche of funding is slated to run out in early February.

The federal budget isn’t the only controversial issue taking the spotlight this week — House Republicans are starting the new session strong with a vote to hold Hunter Biden in contempt of Congress.

The drastic move comes after the younger Biden refused to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee as part of the GOP’s ongoing impeachment inquiry into the president. On the day of the scheduled deposition, Hunter Biden instead appeared on Capitol Hill and gave a statement accusing Republicans of undertaking a political hack job.

Lawmakers have for months sought to tie Hunter Biden’s business dealings to President Biden, accusing him of wielding his political influence for financial benefit. House Republicans have so far failed to produce definitive evidence tying the president to any wrongdoing, much less an impeachable offense.

Despite that, a contempt of Congress resolution filed Monday in the Oversight Committee argues that lawmakers have “accumulated significant evidence” suggesting that President Biden participated in foreign business schemes organized by Hunter Biden and calls the younger Biden’s testimony “a critical component” of the impeachment inquiry.

The oversight panel is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the proposed contempt resolution, which, if approved by the full House, would recommend criminal charges to the Justice Department.

Republican lawmakers are also dialed in this week on a pair of administration officials who they have separately accused of dereliction of duty.

The House Homeland Security Committee is scheduled to hold its first hearings Wednesday in the GOP’s much-vaunted impeachment proceedings against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. Lawmakers are looking to oust the Biden appointee over his handling of the U.S. Southwest border.

Some Republicans also issued new calls Monday to remove Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin after news broke Friday that the White House and other administration officials were unaware that he had been hospitalized last week.

“This concerning lack of transparency exemplifies a shocking lack of judgment and a significant national security threat,” wrote New York Representative Elise Stefanik in a statement. The House Republican conference chair demanded that Austin resign and urged Congress to open an investigation into what she called a “dangerous dereliction of duty.”

The Pentagon has said that Austin does not plan to step down.

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