Per CNN:
House Republicans are pursuing a two-step plan for funding the government, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN, as Congress barrels toward another spending deadline next Friday.
Newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson announced the plan on a GOP conference call with members Saturday afternoon and argued “I wasn’t the architect of the mess we are in,” according to a source on the call.
While Johnson embraced the right wing of his conference by pitching the two-step approach, he didn’t fully cave to their wishes. The package does not include the deep spending cuts that his right flank pushed for but instead extends funding at its current levels.
“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories,” Johnson said in a statement Saturday.
The first bill would extend funding until January 19 and would include military construction, Veterans Affairs, transportation and housing as well as the Energy Department. The second part of the bill, which would extend funding until February 2, would include funding for the rest of the government.
Neither bill includes additional aid for Israel or Ukraine.
NBC:
House Republicans on Saturday unveiled their stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown set to begin next weekend. But with just five legislative days left until the deadline, Congress has little room for error.
Just two and a half weeks into the job, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., opted to go with a two-step continuing resolution, or CR, over a more typical funding extension covering the entire federal government. The untested funding approach is aimed at appeasing far-right agitators in his GOP conference who despise CRs.
The House is expected to vote as early as Tuesday to give members 72 hours to read the text of the bill, according to two people familiar with matter. The plan does not include budget cuts or aid for Israel.
Under the two-step strategy — which Johnson and others have dubbed a “laddered CR” but which others have likened to a step stool — several spending bills needed to keep the government open would be extended until Jan. 19, while the remaining bills would go on a CR until Feb. 2.
GOP hardliners had been pushing Johnson to include budget cuts as part of his two-tiered CR plan, a source involved in discussions told NBC News. One House Republican, Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, quickly voiced his opposition to the bill shortly after it was released.
“It’s a 100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” Roy tweeted. “My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker to the @HouseGOP cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days — for future “promises.”
The plan is designed to avoid a messy showdown right before the holidays and buy Johnson and House Republicans more time to pass individual spending bills, but also create a sense of urgency with staggered funding cliffs. But it remains to be seen if the plan can pass the House, much less the Democratic-controlled Senate, which has dismissed the two-tiered approach.
Speaker Mike Johnson on Saturday pitched House Republicans on a convoluted plan to avert a government shutdown at the end of next week, proposing a bill that would temporarily extend funding for some federal agencies until late January and for others through early February.
The measure faces an uncertain fate in Congress. Many conservative House Republicans have demanded that any spending plan include deep spending cuts, and Democrats and some G.O.P. senators have sharply questioned the idea of bifurcating federal programs and staggering the deadlines for funding them.
A vote on the plan could come as early as Tuesday, just days before the Friday midnight deadline for keeping the government funded.
It’s enough to make you scream.
The American people are busy, tired, and broke. They have so much shit going on every day that for most of them, it’s hard to keep track of everything. So when you write articles like this, you think you are informing them, but you really aren’t. You’re distracting them from the real problem. You are making it so complicated and not giving them the information they need. Because the information they need is for every article about this to start with the following phrase:
“Because the Republicans refuse to simply pass a bill to raise the debt limit to pay for money that was already legislated and spent…”
That is the necessary information. Not the hoops and rings that Johnson has to jump through to appease the various nutters in his own party. Simply state that this is a problem THEY FUCKING MADE and now they are trying to fix the problem THAT THEY FUCKING MADE AND ARE MAKING. All of this could end tomorrow if they just passed a clean debt limit increase that they used to do for my entire fucking life until recently.
rikyrah
You speak the truth, Cole.
The complete truth😒
Lord Fartdaddy (Formerly Mumphrey, Smedley Darlington Mingobat, et al.)
These people are going to keep on spewing shit like this right up until the end. If Trump wins, they’re going to be in the crosshairs, but they’ll cover for his ass all the same. It’s all they know how to do. If these people had been the press in Germany in 1930, they’d have done the same thing for Hitler, and they would’ve kept on doing it, even as the brownshirts came to take them away. They don’t learn. I don’t think they can learn.
Baud
This has nothing to do with the debt limit.
This is about reneging on the debt limit deal in that summer.
rikyrah
They continue to not tell the truth about the positive from President Biden’s record
Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) tweeted at 2:12 PM on Fri, Nov 10, 2023:
🚨 BREAKING President Biden calls for non-union autoworkers across Tesla, Toyota, etc., to organize with @UAW.
“Join, organize, picket, protest,” he told us. “You have a right to form a union, and you cannot be stopped. You cannot be intimidated.”
Joe Biden is easily the most… https://t.co/jaf39z7B91
(https://twitter.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1723071166812762201?s=02)
MattF
Then it goes to the Senate, then it goes to conference— where Johnson will have to contend with those awful Demoncrats. And all in, what, two days? Um, nope.
Shalimar
I approve of the Republican plan to shut down the government every month or two while they’re running for re-election. Best plan to distract from Trump’s legal problems I have heard yet.
ETtheLibrarian
They couldn’t even include the Legislative branch (the one they and their staff are in) on that first batch. Big FU to the people they work with.
PBK
@Baud: Off topic but re your question in an earlier thread about commenter germy…they have been missing for quite a while; I know Steeplejack and I had remarked on it a while ago. Also Nicole!
HinTN
@Baud: To Cole’s point, the lede should be, “Republicans refuse to honor an agreement they previously made about funding veterans, the military, Medicare, Social Security, assistance for families in need, and all other government functions.”
I know I took a liberty there with Medicare and SS, but let those fuckers whine about it. It’s messaging!!!
Baud
@PBK:
Thanks. Nicole too? That’s not good.
Betty Cracker
The national coverage sucks as usual. We all see what the lying, bible-humping, gun-fondling creeps are doing here, right? The proposal is to fund their pet agencies up front, and then they’ll screw the rest when the subsequent agreements fail to materialize.
brendancalling
Credit where credit is due: the WaPo had a great headline on this story: House GOP unveils funding bill that critics call ‘craziest, stupidest thing’.
The Post has its problems, but more of this please.
Geminid
Senator Patty Murray, Senate Appropriations Committee Chair, gave a measured appraisal of Speaker Johnson’s plan:
“That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard of.”
Adam L Silverman
They passed a clean debt limit increase back in April. It includes the budget top lines for appropriations for fiscal year 2024. 192 of the current House majority GOP caucus voted for that bill. The House majority GOP caucus has refused to actually abide by the agreed to for appropriations. Which is why we are currently under a continuing resolution that will expire next Friday. The debt limit will not need to be increased again until sometime next spring.
Odie Hugh Manatee
John, you’re asking what are supposed to be our news organizations to actually provide a useful public service. Are you delusional? That’s not their job, it’s your job to root through all of the horseshit that they produce to hopefully find a pony. Invariably you wont because frustration is their intent. They just wanted your eyeballs for the story, the ads and the demographic data of the person eating their shit. You’ve wasted your time and now you know even less about what you wanted to know more about.
I wish people would just walk away from the major media outlets while giving them the finger.
rikyrah
Chris D. Jackson (@ChrisDJackson) posted at 5:37 PM on Fri, Nov 10, 2023:
The more I read and learn about the late 1940s, the more I am convinced that Joe Biden is the modern-day Harry Truman.
It is truly uncanny how similar the situations Truman faced at home and abroad back then are to the ones facing Biden now. (intra party squabbles, the Middle East, authoritarianism, bad polling, labor disputes, inflation, etc)
Most folks had counted Truman out by 1948, including many in his own party. But you know what, he ended up surprising everyone and winning that year and the rest is history.
I predict the same will happen with President Biden next year. Like Truman, you underestimate him at your peril.
https://t.co/FhUr6bxIrx
(https://x.com/ChrisDJackson/status/1723122726091542853?t=zxy61uFQn9OprbRS9zp8oQ&s=03)
Robmassing
“To avert a shutdown.” Because a shutdown is just this thing that happens. No one has agency, but also the Republicans are the ones who can save us from this disaster.
catclub
How crazy does a Bishop have to be to be forced to resign by the Pope, refuse to resign, and then get fired by the Pope from his job as Bishop of Tyler Texas?
Other MJS
Yeah, but that’s not new news. We need the latest quotes from GQP berzerkers.
Villago Delenda Est
The scum of the Village are doing precisely what their billionaire parasite owners want them to do: obfuscate, obfuscate, obfuscate. Because the root cause of all this is all the tax cuts for billionaire parasites over the last 40 years.
Tax these vile creatures until they bleed.
Lifeinthebonusround
@Baud: You’re right, it’s not about the debt limit. It’s about the spending. And *that* was agreed at the same time as the debt limit was raised. Did someone say “good faith?”
Ben Cisco
The Press Corpse continues to prove their worth on a daily basis. 17th century courtiers were pikers compared to this lot.
Ohio Mom
I’ve think I’ve mentioned this before. My BIL is a features reporter and my SIL is a retired editor.
They worked at various newspapers over the course of their careers, and they really do believe all the both sides stuff we rage at and make fun of — “opinions vary on the shape of the earth.”
It’s that Upton Sinclair quote in real life, ““it is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
They are otherwise smart and personable people. Just that blind spot of theirs is jarring to me, when I am not bemused by how obviously predictable it turns out to be.
NorthLeft
John, come on. Americans are not broke. Your country is the richest country in the world. Yeah, you have people who are struggling, like every other country on earth, but overall the US is doing far better than almost any other country.
mrmoshpotato
Can I scream while slapping CNN, NBC, and the fucking New York Times – and Van Jones for good measure?
Fuck ’em!
wjca
Nothing like some negative feedback from Democrats to get the RWNJs to vote it thru. No matter how much they oppose it.
There’s an old movie line which goes roughly: “Can they really be that dumb?” To which the answer is, manifestly, Yup.
wjca
And House Republicans seem determined to help him resurrect Truman’s campaign against a “Do Nothing Congress”.
Jay
@NorthLeft:
58% of Americans survive paycheck to paycheck
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/11/58percent-of-americans-are-living-paycheck-to-paycheck-cnbc-survey-reveals.html
While America is a very wealthy country, it is also very unevenly distributed.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/#:~:text=In%20the%20second%20quarter%20of,percent%20of%20the%20total%20wealth.
Ruckus
Rethuglicans surely have not lost the concept of the size and scope of our national government budget is not measured in billions any longer, it’s now trillions of dollars. Or that equality is still not all that and a box of donuts. Or that the fucking rich are more than rich enough. And that some of them, like the one on trial and awaiting more trials for being a complete and utter _ _ _ _ (fill in the blank with your own description!) are far worse than totally useless _ _ _ _ _. Or that a fair share for income tax is different for a billionaire than for a minimum wage hourly worker. If they cut my social security payment, after I paid into it for 60 damn years in a decent paying line of work and it still just pays my minimal bills I believe I might just be a bit pissed off.
Dan B
@Geminid: One of my Senators is Patty. She knows what she’s talking about.
Now will the media say that both sides are responsible for the disfunction of the Congress?
Dan B
@catclub: Nasty is more like it. There’s a write up at Joe MyvGod blog if you want details. Nasty to LGBTQ is one part.
RaflW
Johnson cannot craft a CR that can get enough Republican votes to pass. That’s the central breakdown. And he can’t do a bipartisan bill (yet*), because that is what shot the last Speaker into the moon (or, into a state of uselessness even greater than when he was limply holding the gavel).
So it’s all just complete bullshit. His ladder is fake. His plan is riddled with holes. But the press feels it has to tiptoe around what is as obvious as the noses on our faces. It’d be embarrassing how they let themselves be pantsed by such simple blunt analysis, but it’s too serious and thus enraging.
*Once the government shuts down, and (I believe, despite bothsiderism that is cancerous) the public gets vicious angry at the GOP, he may be able to resort to a deal with Dems.
Emerald
I hope this is the right place to put this. I’m not familiar with this site. I’m fulfilling one of my sister’s last wishes to post her last message here.
Dear friends of my sister “Emerald” (her real name was Monica D. Wyatt, Ph.D.) I’m sorry to report that she passed away on September 6th, 2023. I’m also sorry it has taken 2 months for me to get to this. It’s been tough. She didn’t want anyone to know that she had fatal ALS disease.
I was her caregiver for 2+ years. She was our Dad’s caregiver for many years until he passed from complications of Parkinson’s disease in 2012. She wrote this:
Monica earned a Ph.D from The University of Georgia in Reading Education and taught at Northern Illinois University. She participated in theater for about 20 years. She never found the time to read all the books she hoped to read, but got enjoyed quite a few, including all of Dickens. Her name is inscribed on the Perseverance Rover and will remain on Mars for a billion years. She loved cats! She passed due to complications of ALS disease but insists that she is now dancing. Peace to you all.
Another Scott
@RaflW:
RollCall.com story about action in the Senate:
This coming week is going to be quite busy. We’ll see how much gets done before the end of the year.
Cheers,
Scott.
NotMax
@Geminid
Just wait, Senator. More’s a-coming.
//
MomSense
@Emerald:
OH No!! I’m so sorry. Thank you for letting us know. Please accept my condolences.
May her memory be a blessing. Come by any time and let us know how you are doing.
Adam L Silverman
@Emerald: It is and I’m going to put it on the front page right now.
Thank you for letting us know.
Another Scott
@Emerald: Oh no. :-(
I remember a thread with her talking about reading Dickens. Her love of his writing really came through.
Thanks for helping to care for her. Many of us here have been there and know how hard it can be.
Condolences to you and everyone who knew and loved her. Thank you for letting us know.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Adam L Silverman
@Adam L Silverman: It’s up on the front page.
stinger
@Emerald: I am so sorry to hear of your sister’s passing. I lost my father to ALS many years ago. Emerald was a valued commenter here, and Monica sounds like a wonderful person. Sincerest condolences on your loss.
rikyrah
I hope that David Anderson will explain to us what it means that Amazon has decided to get into healthcare. Unless you tell me that Bezos has bought the major hospitals across the country, I don’t get it. They still need access to providers
prostratedragon
@Ruckus:
Their leader would rather run to Paris for a long weekend. “La Vie en Rose,” Grace Jones
Geminid
The Debt Ceiling bill psssed on June 2 suspends the debt ceiling until January 1, 2025. Congress will have to either extend the suspension or raise the debt ceiling in next year’s “Lame Duck” session, between the election and December 31.
artem1s
@catclub:
Pope Francis removes a leading US conservative critic as bishop of Tyler, Texas
Well, that’s interesting. And the push back seems to be coming from priests and lay leaders within the Diocese.
K-Mo
@Adam L Silverman: thank you. Cole should rewrite this.
Bex
@artem1s: Strickland started off OK, but became an anti vaccine proponent and far right political believer. He talked trash about Pope Francis and refused to resign when he was asked to, so the hammer came down. I wonder if he is dumb enough to be surprised.
Honus
@Villago Delenda Est: “Because the root cause of all this is all the tax cuts for billionaire parasites over the last 40 years.”
Don’t you mean Job Creators?
Quaker in a Basement
@Baud: Baud is correct.
Beavis C Dawg
Adam,
Thank you for your tireless work on these updates. I just delurked here and have not had a chance since these usually post late for me.