It’s become a recurring punchline in Washington: the government is about to shut down. This Friday, for the third time in four months, a crucial funding deadline will arrive, meaning that Congress has to pass either a full funding deal or a short-term bill called a continuing resolution (CR) before then to avoid a shutdown.
Thanks to an unusual funding agreement that was reached in November, this week’s potential shutdown would be a bit different than usual; only some government departments will run out of money on Friday, with the rest of the government set to shut down on February 2. But as Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Wyckoff) warned today, any level of shutdown would have disastrous effects on things like veterans’ care, school lunch programs, federal law enforcement, and more.
“The far-ranging impact a shutdown would have on our children, our active-duty servicemembers, our national defense, our seniors, transportation, food security – all of it couldn’t be clearer,” Gottheimer said on a press call.
The solution that’s been proposed by Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is to pass another continuing resolution that would fund the government through March 1 and March 8, depending on the department. It would be the third time in a row that Congress pushed its own deadline back, after similar short-term measures were passed last September and November.
That bill should come up for full House and Senate votes within the next couple of days, and Gottheimer confidently predicted that “the votes will be there” when it does. But Johnson is facing flak from some of the most right-wing members of his caucus, many of whom rebelled against the two previous CRs and are unhappy once again with the newest one.
A few Republicans have even raised the specter of ousting Johnson, causing a repeat of last October, when Speaker Kevin McCarthy was given the boot and the House was plunged into three weeks of leaderless turmoil. That’s a move that Gottheimer – who like all of his fellow Democrats voted to oust McCarthy last year – said would be a huge mistake.
“[Johnson is] going to have to ignore all the threats from these right-wing extremists to vacate the chair and throw him out of office,” Gottheimer said. “I believe they can’t afford that; our country certainly can’t afford that. We can’t go through that again.”
Longer-term, Schumer and Johnson have unveiled a full deal that would keep most current funding levels intact, with some cuts in non-defense spending. That deal, too, has drawn ire from the more right-wing members of Johnson’s caucus, so much so that the Speaker has seemed at times to waver on his commitment to the deal, though it remains in place for now.
Gottheimer said that once the immediate problem of a shutdown on Friday is averted, Congress needs to get its act together and pass a funding deal that isn’t just a “temporary, patchwork solution.”
“Even if we pass this extension, and I hope we do, this is no way to run a railroad,” he said. “The lack of certainty impacts every government department and costs our military hundreds of millions of dollars and massive lost productivity… It’s time we put partisanship aside, stop this cycle of insanity, and work out a long-term, bipartisan budget deal.”