(Headline USA) Republican outrage over Congress’s latest engineered fiscal crisis helped tank a controversial Congressional Resolution, while putting House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., in hot water with much of the GOP caucus.
After a day of festering on Capitol Hill, the bill met its demise when President-elect Donald Trump weighed in, abruptly rejecting the 1,547-page porkfest that Swamp politicians hoped to slip through the cracks while many had their attention turned toward the upcoming Christmas holiday.
Instead Johnson and Republicans will need to essentially renegotiate the terms, days before a deadline when federal funding runs out—or else fase a government shutdown over the break, grinding to a halt the final weeks of the lame-duck Biden administration.
Already, the massive bill was on the verge of collapse, as fiscal conservatives rejected the increased spending, egged on by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who promptly rejected the plan after it was released late Tuesday night.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years,” Musk wrote on X.
Ramaswamy, who is Musk’s co-chair overseeing the new Department of Government Efficiency, offered a lengthier and more erudite reply after claiming to have read the entire bill.
“Debt-fueled spending sprees may ‘feel good’ today, but it’s like showering cocaine on an addict: it’s not compassion, it’s cruelty,” Ramaswamy said.
Nonetheless, Trump’s sudden entrance into the debate and new demands sent Congress spiraling as lawmakers were trying to wrap up work and head home for the holidays. It left Johnson scrambling to engineer a new plan before Friday’s deadline to keep government open.
“Republicans must GET SMART and TOUGH,” Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance said in a statement.
“If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then CALL THEIR BLUFF,” they added. “… Anything else is a betrayal of our country.”
Democrats decried the GOP revolt over the stopgap measure, which included $100 billion in much-needed disaster aid to states hammered by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, but also included (among other things):
- $8 billion for a new football stadium in Washington, D.C.
- $50 million annually for an extended drinking water program
- five years’ worth of funding for a healthcare education program
- a massive pay raise for members of Congress
- full federal funding to rebuild Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge
- a reauthorization of the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act
“House Republicans have been ordered to shut down the government and hurt the working class Americans they claim to support,” claimed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “You break the bipartisan agreement, you own the consequences that follow.”
Like other Republican House speakers before him, Johnson has been unable to convince his majority to go along with the last-minute spending spree.
Democrats, who negotiated the final product with Johnson and Senate GOP leadership, will be expected to provide enough support to help Johnson ensure passage, as is often the case on big bills.
“The sooner Congress acts, the better,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
The final package extends existing government programs and services at their current operating levels for a few more months, through March 14, 2025.
Congress has failed to pass its annual appropriations bills to fund all the various agencies in the federal government, from the Pentagon and national security apparatus, to the health, welfare, transportation and other routine domestic services. When the fiscal year ended on Sept. 30, Congress simply punted the problem by passing the temporary funding bill that expires Friday.
But the inches-thick bill goes beyond routine funding and tacks on several other measures that lawmakers were trying to push through to passage before the end of this lame-duck congressional session, especially as some elected officials will not be returning in the new year.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., called it a “s**t sandwich.”
The chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., said a lot of lawmakers “are a little disappointed at how this last week has worked out.”
Although Matt Gaetz—the Florida lawmaker who forced the motion to vacate against previous House speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., after a similar funding scandal—recently resigned from Congress, Johnson undoubtedly faces pressure to avoid a similar fate, with only a five-member majority going into the next congressional session.
Gaetz, fending off an underhanded vote by the House Ethics Committee to release a report outlining an investigation on his romantic affairs, jabbed at his former colleagues by asking who was guilty of the greater ethical violation.
“It’s embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank and smoked more than I should have earlier in life,” he wrote. “… But at least I didn’t vote for CR’s that f**k over the country!”
Garnering particular outrage was the 40% pay increase—according to some accounts—that Congress opted to give itself in order to sweeten the pot and incentivize the passage.
The bill turns off a pay freeze provision that was included in the previous short-term spending measure, which could allow a maximum pay adjustment of 3.8% or $6,600 in 2025, bringing their annual pay to $180,600 at its current level, according to a Congressional Research Service report.
Members of Congress last got a raise in 2009, when the salary was increased 2.8% to $174,000 annually. If member pay had not been frozen since 2009, salaries would be about $217,900.
The average salary in the U.S. is $63,795, according to the Social Security Administration.
Some pointed to the legislature’s record-low approval, with Congress hovering around 22% after a particularly unproductive and acrimonious few years that included House Democrats twice attempting to impeach Trump based on false, politically motivated pretenses.
“By what measure do we deserve a pay increase?” said Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C.
Conservative influencer Alex Muse also noted an apparent cover-up as the House stuck in a provision that sought to give itself proprietary control over all of its data, which would essentially derail the incoming Trump administration’s efforts to investigate potential criminal activity from current and former House member including now-Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; Rep. Eric Swalwell, D-Calif.; and former Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press
