The GOP-led House called it quits early on Thursday, leaving for its “August” recess after holding a bullshit vote attacking Vice President Kamala Harris—but without doing the planned job of funding large sectors of the government.
Representatives won’t be back from their break until Sept. 9, stretching their month at home to six weeks. And when the House does reconvene, it will have just 13 scheduled work days to make sure the government doesn’t shut down when the new fiscal year starts on Oct. 1. What that means is yet another fight in the badly splintered GOP over a short-term funding bill, with more shutdown threats and angst, as well as a post-election lame-duck period that promises chaos.
All of this was supposed to be different when House Speaker Mike Johnson took over from the ousted Kevin McCarthy last fall.
Ha.
Last October, when he took over as speaker, Johnson made big promises there wouldn’t be any more funding chaos in his chamber. He pledged the following on behalf of House leadership: “DO NOT break for district work period unless all 12 appropriations bills have passed the House.”
How have House Republicans done on that goal? Not so great.
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They have passed five of the 12 necessary funding bills, all with conservative poison pills and under President Joe Biden’s veto threat.
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One bill was advanced to the floor without enough votes. It failed.
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Three have been yanked from the floor when it was clear they would fail.
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They haven’t even tried to bring the remaining bills.
We’ve seen the same story ever since the Republicans took over the House last year: chaos brought on by GOP infighting. It’s bad enough now that Republicans are running to Fox News to snipe at each other, mostly anonymously.
One Republican expressed their exasperation with party hard-liners trying to include even more outrageous amendments in these funding bills. “If you bring an amendment up that … makes me feel good … but it’s literally not going to pass a markup, or it’s not going to allow the bill to pass on the floor because the moderates are not going to like it, it’s just political masturbation at that point,” one Republican lawmaker told Fox. “So, what are we doing?”
“Many of the appropriators are not excited about seeing some of these amendments being voted on,” complained another elected Republican. “So, they vote against the amendments, and they get upset with those people when they don’t vote for the full appropriations bill. So, everybody’s mad.”
Expect that anger to fester over the next six weeks of vacation and for another miserable funding fight to take place in September, replete with government shutdown threats. They’ll have to pass a short-term funding bill to keep the government’s doors open. And if they don’t have that shutdown fight in September, they’ll have it after the election—whatever the results. Because at this point, that’s all Republicans know how to do.
Let’s end this clown show. Donate now to take back the House!
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