Johnson defends short-term spending patch as clock ticks toward shutdown

WASHINGTON (CN) — With just days to go until a federal funding deadline, House Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday rebuked criticism from some of his Republican colleagues that a forthcoming short-term budget patch was a “Christmas tree” of unnecessary government spending.

Though the text of the proposed budget bill, commonly known as a continuing resolution, had yet to be released as Johnson joined reporters for a news conference Tuesday morning, some GOP lawmakers are already skeptical of the legislation.

The proposed continuing resolution would extend funding for federal programs through March, but also includes additional cash for hurricane relief and for rebuilding Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, as well as financial support for American farmers. Some Republicans have bristled at those provisions, slamming party leaders for pushing a measure which they say is tantamount to an omnibus spending bill — a genre of government spending legislation that Johnson has said he opposes.

But the House speaker had some choice words for his colleagues Tuesday.

“They haven’t even seen it yet,” Johnson said of the continuing resolution, pushing back on the perception that Republican leadership was cramming the bill down lawmakers’ throats. “I have a couple of friends who will say that about any end-of-year funding measure,” he added.

Johnson insisted that the proposed budget patch was not an omnibus despite the added spending.

“This is a small CR that we’ve had to add things to that were out of our control,” he explained, pointing out that the pair of hurricanes that ravaged the East Coast in the fall and the Key Bridge collapse were not “manmade disasters.”

“I wish it weren’t necessary — I wish we hadn’t had record hurricanes in the fall and I wish that farmers were not in a bind so much that creditors are not able to lend to them anymore,” Johnson said. “We have to be able to help those who are in dire straits.”

The speaker also argued that the proposed continuing resolution was aimed primarily at getting Congress through the first quarter of 2025, giving them time to hash out the details of full-year spending bills.

“We’re going to take care of these obligations and get this done, and then we’re going to work in the unified government in the 119th Congress,” Johnson told reporters. “It begins in January.”

But some of the speaker’s Republican colleagues remained dissatisfied with the state of the proposed stopgap budget.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of the most outspoken critics of short-term spending bills, doubled down in a Tuesday post on X, accusing congressional leadership of “dangling important programs around as a bargaining chip.”

“This CR is turning into a three-month omnibus, that will result in more Democrats that Republicans voting for it,” she wrote. “I would much rather help farmers and victims of natural disasters than continue a budget I already voted against, funding foreign governments and foreign wars.”

South Carolina Representative Nancy Mace argued that Congress had “manufactured” a government shutdown crisis to push through the proposed continuing resolution.

“DC never lets a good crisis go to waste,” she said. “It’s so TIRED and PREDICTABLE.”

Funding for federal government programs has been frozen at current levels since September, when House Republicans passed a similar continuing resolution with Democratic support. Several GOP lawmakers seethed at the time about what they saw as a status quo government spending process.

Under the current resolution, government funding is set to run out on Friday. Without some sort of budget patch from Congress, the government is currently slated to shut down just days before the Christmas holiday.

If the new proposed continuing resolution is made law, Republicans will need to hit the ground running next year to hammer out full-year spending plans. The GOP will enjoy a governing trifecta come Jan. 20, with control over not only the White House but also both houses of Congress.

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