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SUBSCRIBER EXCLUSIVE | SEPTEMBER 23, 2023

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House in Recess After Tumultuous Week of Spending Negotiations

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington on Sept. 19, 2023. (Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times)

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) has had a tough week.

After a series of setbacks in funding avoiding a government shutdown—delivered by members of his own party—the usually unflappable speaker went on what passes for a rant, then dismissed the House a day early.

Meanwhile, the federal government will shut down in six days unless Congress finds a way to come to an agreement.

Here’s what happened, or rather didn’t happen, in the House last week.

Sept. 13 – It all began on Sept. 13, when Mr. McCarthy canceled a procedural vote that would have allowed consideration of the $886 billion defense budget. Reading the tea leaves, the speaker likely figured hardline Republicans would kill the vote, so he pulled it.

Strike one.

Sept. 17 – A slender ray of hope emerged as a coalition of House Republicans put forward a continuing resolution to keep the federal government funded through Oct. 31, buying more time to complete the funding process.

The measure included an 8 percent reduction in discretionary spending and increased border security measures popular with Republicans.

Sept. 19 – Hardline Republicans strongly opposed the continuing resolution, seeing it as a mere extension of President Joe Biden’s spending program. Realizing that the bill wouldn’t pass, Mr. McCarthy canceled a procedural vote that would have brought it to the floor.

Strike two.

Sept. 19 – Mr. McCarthy is a hard man to discourage, so he took another run at the defense appropriations bill. This time, he allowed the procedural vote, known as the “rule,” to be taken.

It failed. Five Republicans voted against it.

The dissenters weren’t opposed to the defense bill itself. They were holding out to ensure the total of all discretionary spending, of which defense accounts for more than half, would be limited to $1.471 trillion. That’s the amount set by the Limit, Save, Grow Act in April.

The Senate, meanwhile, is setting spending levels in keeping with the Fiscal Responsibility Act, the compromise negotiated in June between Mr. McCarthy and President Biden in June.

Strike 3.

Sept. 20 – The ever-optimistic speaker called a closed-door meeting of House Republicans to resolve the impasse on the defense bill. Many members said later the pow-wow resulted in some progress.

“We made a lot of progress on it,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told The Epoch Times. “I agreed to vote for the rule for [the Department of Defense]. I agreed to vote for the rule on [the] floor when it comes to the final vote,” he said.

Sept. 21 – Apparently buoyed by the movement among some hardliners, Mr. McCarthy called another vote on the defense rule. Remember, the only purpose of this vote is to set the terms for the debate so it can be voted on by the full House.

And once again it failed as a handful of Republicans voted against it.

Strike … four?

That was enough to wipe the perpetual smile from the speaker’s face, as he told reporters, “It’s frustrating in the sense that I don’t understand why anybody votes against bringing the idea and having the debate. And then you got all the amendments if you don’t like the bill.

“This is a whole new concept of individuals that just want to burn the whole place down. It doesn’t work.”

Ouch.

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Mr. McCarthy then immediately set out to work on the problem. “I know it’s an obstacle, but I [take] it as a challenge and we’re going to solve it,” he told reporters.

The Rules Committee met again on Friday to set the terms for debate on appropriations bills for the departments of Homeland Security, State, Defense, and Agriculture. So it appears that Mr. McCarthy will now take a run at getting the 12 appropriations bills passed by the end of the week.

But … the Senate now has an opportunity to pass its own version of a continuing resolution, which could happen in the next couple of days. If it does, the bill will likely be bipartisan in nature and even more distasteful to hardline Republicans in the House.

Mr. McCarthy would have to choose between calling for a vote on a bill that many, perhaps most, of his members dislike, and being blamed for a government shutdown.

Congress has completed all 12 appropriations bills by Sept. 30 only four times in the last 46 years, the last time in 1997.

In other years, Congress has resorted to continuing resolutions to extend the deadline or omnibus spending bills, which lump all spending into a single yes-or-no package. In 2022, Congress used both tactics, passing a $1.7 trillion spending bill in late December.

Here’s the key to understanding the hardliners: they fear a massive, unamendable omnibus spending bill even more than they fear a government shutdown. They’re not bucking to close Washington, but they’ll be darned if they’ll allow another $1.7 trillion, take-it-or-leave-it omnibus to leave the House.

The House and Senate return Tuesday after the long weekend in observance of Yom Kippur.

To dig deeper into the subject, read the following original reporting by our journalists:

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