The same process means an omnibus spending package that combines a wad of ordinary appropriations bills into one larger bill that can be passed by a single vote in each house of Congress.
There are 12 appropriations bills that have to be passed each year.
The omnibus approach is what Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and other conservative Republicans detest, and it’s what led to Gaetz’ stance and the ultimate ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, which in turn led to Mike Johnson in the big chair.
Valuable time to develop and sell a plan to fund the 12 bills individually was lost as Republicans struggled to fill the Speaker’s seat for weeks, and now a Nov. 17 deadline to avoid a government shutdown looms and the omnibus approach is rearing its head again.
“We’re seeing that play out,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) said on Washington Watch Tuesday. “This is a grotesquely dysfunctional place but we have a very well-honed process for plundering and mortgaging our children’s future.”
The massive omnibus bill is often presented with very little time to read through it and see what the legislation actually says, which conservative lawmakers have complained about again and again.
The individual spending bills are where the Republican-led House can include meaningful policy “riders” that threaten a loss of funds and help slow the advance of the Biden Administration’s left-wing agenda. It’s harder to get those into one big bill.
“We made a commitment that we would get back to the business of actually passing appropriations bills. That has not been done here in a long, long time, “Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday. “We’re running up against the clock on Nov. 17, and we’re obviously aware of that, but we’re going to get the job done and we’re taking care of that business.”
Congress hasn’t passed 12 individual spending bills since the 1990s, according to The New York Times.
Johnson isn’t the first House Speaker to seek the 12 bills. Speaker Paul Ryan in late 2015 made regular order the goal for 2016 but failed.
A monster omnibus 'crisis' is no accident
The big bill is an intentional strategy for Democrats and for compliant money-spending Republicans, too. The dishonest political strategy, Sen. Johnson said, is to don't pass appropriations bills during the year, wait until the end of the fiscal year, then claim a "crisis" has befallen Congress that must be fixed.
"If we shut the government down, do a CR (Continuing Resolution) that expires before a holiday, and then drop a massive omnibus or nine-bill mini-bus on people's desk, nobody reads it," the Republican senator complained. "They pass real quick and we forget about it. That's the cycle we're trying to break."
Mike Johnson briefed Republicans about a handful of spending strategies on Tuesday with no clear favorite among the group. His next steps are uncertain.
The House passed a stand-alone Israel aid bill last week but Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is intent on combining aid for Israel with aid for Ukraine, the Palestinians in Gaza, and other Democrat spending preferences as put forth by President Biden.
Ron Johnson says Biden’s package has too many “controversial elements” to pass quickly. “I’m not sure Israel has that time,” he said. “So let’s move the Israel package first, and then anything we do to support Ukraine absolutely must be attached to real border security with benchmarks.”
Ron Johnson said any significant border improvement from the Biden administration can only come if certain objectives are written into law.
“We have a president that wants an open border and is lawless and cannot be expected to faithfully execute the laws we pass, so we need to hold his feet to the fire by actually having benchmarks tied to the funding levels,” Sen. Johnson said.
The Wisconsin senator said the peak of southern border success during Donald Trump’s presidency came in April of 2020 when Border Patrol reported just 17,500 crossings. There were 270,000 encounters last month, he said.
A plan for returning to 'regular order'
Passing legislation like that will take time in the funding process, Ron Johnson said. He believes another Continuing Resolution is coming that will extend government business into 2024. A CR that funds the government through, perhaps, the first three months of 2024, he said, would set Congress on a path to return to regular order for 2025.
“What I would argue for the House is to give the Senate enough time to pass our bills as individually as possible and then conference the two," he explained, "We certainly ought to do a CR that takes us past the end of the year, so we don't have this pressure under Christmas break, and then we may have to give us some more time so that we can pass appropriation bills in a more thoughtful manner, giving them more scrutiny in both chambers and then conference those. It's the only way we start returning to regular order."
