That near-certainty will happen because Democrats won’t let go of a last effort to infuse a far-left agenda into Republican initiatives, House Speaker Mike Johnson said on Washington Watch Monday from an interview over the weekend.
Minority leaders Chuck Schumer in the Senate and Hakeem Jeffries in the House met with their Republican counterparts and Trump on Monday but left the meeting with no deal.
Republicans hold slim majorities in the House and Senate.
Each chamber has passed three of the 12 annual spending bills, bills that have now gone back to a conference committee to work out the differences.
“But we’re about to run out of clock. We just need a little more time,” Johnson told show host Tony Perkins.
The House has also passed a continuing resolution, a “clean CR” that would maintain current spending levels and fund the government through Nov. 21.
The same measure would not pass the Senate because Republicans don’t have the votes to end a filibuster.
Democrats don’t want a clean CR, Johnson said.
“They want to throw in $1.5 trillion in new spending. They want to have American taxpayers give free health care to illegal aliens … again. They want to reinstate that. They want to give half a billion dollars to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to prop up left-wing media outlets. That’s just part of it. We’re not doing that,” Johnson said.
The House isn’t even discussing a compromise. It’s not currently in session and won’t be reconvened until Oct. 7, a week past the deadline.
It’s a necessary stern message to Schumer, Johnson said.
“It’s the right thing to do for the American people. We had to put an exclamation point on the end of that action to show Chuck Schumer that we're not playing those games. He’s going to own the shutdown.”
Will Republicans hold firm?
Sometimes Republicans have erased the line in the sand after drawing it.
In 2011 they wanted spending cuts and reform of entitlement programs in exchange for raising the debt limit.
Eventually, they relented, accepting revenue increases and weaker tax increases rather than risking default.
In 2018-2019, Donald Trump’s first term, Republicans agreed to reopen the government without gaining full funding for a border wall.
“I'll bring everybody back middle of next week after the Democrat shutdown begins, but we're going to hold the line. We have to. We're not going to give in to their radical left proposals to spend more money and to effectively give free benefits to illegal aliens. We're not doing that,” Johnson said.
Trump is also making moves to put pressure on Democrats.
Last week the White House began laying the groundwork for mass layoffs in the event of a shutdown. This is different from standard unpaid furloughs during a work stoppage.
The administration’s plans would permanently scale back the size of the federal workforce.
The White House Office of Management and Budget has instructed agencies to consider reduction-in-force (RIF) notices for those in programs and projects that will have a lapse in discretionary funding Wednesday and another source of funding is not accessible, Fox News reports.
Democrats are being “100 percent unreasonable,” Tommy Aiello, of the National Taxpayers Union, said on American Family Radio Tuesday.
“We all want a more nimble, efficient, smaller federal government, but the way we get there isn't through a government shutdown,” he told show host Jenna Ellis.
But a $1.5 trillion ask by Democrats is too much of a taxpayer burden just to keep the government open for seven weeks, Aiello said.
“The reasonable position is just a short-term continuing resolution, allow Democrats and Republicans to continue to negotiate for how we fund the government over the next year. I don't think that's something controversial. I think it's something 65-70 percent of the American people would actually support.”
The president has additional authority to reshape the workforce during a shutdown.
“There’s a broad amount of discretion that any president has in a scenario like this. The Office of Management and Budget may well take this opportunity, as (Trump has) indicated, to cut a lot more wasteful spending, fraud, waste, abuse, inefficiencies in government. That's what Republicans are for,” Johnson said.
Squirming for Schumer?
That could put Schumer in an extremely uncomfortable position.
“He finds himself there because that's his strategy. He paints himself into those corners,” Johnson said.
Still, Democrats in both chambers believe Republicans will blink first.
For now, Johnson’s holding fast to GOP commitment not to advance Democrat priorities. He can see no reason for Democrats to balk at maintaining current spending levels with no new initiatives from either side.
“There’s absolutely nothing in this measure that they can possibly object to. All they want is to add additional things that we just can't do.”
