We begin today with Marianna Sotomayor of The Washington Post reminding us that the real fiscal fights are still ahead.
The House and Senate remain billions of dollars apart on their respective appropriation bills that would fund all government departments until Sept. 30, 2024, with both chambers failing to mark up their proposals to the $1.59 trillion in spending enshrined into law by House Republicans and President Biden in exchange for raising the debt ceiling earlier this year. But while appropriators and governing-minded lawmakers in both parties believe they can strike compromise and avoid an automatic one percent cut across all federal departments early next year, far-right hard-liners have suggested rejecting any compromise that does not fulfill their spending requests and have flirted with the idea of supporting a government shutdown if the Senate does not accept their demands. [...]
When they return from the Thanksgiving break, House Republicans hope to continue passing full year-funding bills, of which five of 12 remain. But they acknowledge intraparty differences will make the process incredibly difficult. Republicans believe three of the five remaining bills may be able to pass once changes are made, but proposals funding the Department of Agriculture — usually the least controversial bill — and Labor and Health and Human Services are riddled with provisions that vulnerable Republicans representing swing-districts could never support.
Foreshadowing the expected fight ahead, 14 members of the Freedom Caucus and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) put Johnson on notice this week by reverting back to an old tactic that previously helped extract concessions from leadership. These Republicans sunk a procedural hurdle to consider a full-year funding bill that the group has been demanding a vote on all year — a scheme Freedom Caucus members agreed to deploy against Johnson’s decisions as “a shot across the bow … in good faith,” as Perry described the move.
