House conservatives are railing against the latest spending deal negotiated by Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), accusing leadership of ignoring their demands and warning that future generations will be swamped in federal debt.
Their outcry is just the latest headache for Johnson, who has already cut a number of bipartisan funding deals with President Biden and did so again this week, announcing an agreement on the last six spending bills of fiscal year 2024 ahead of Friday’s government shutdown deadline.
Johnson’s endorsement acknowledges the political realities of governing in a divided Washington, where Democrats control both the White House and Senate, and any major legislation requires bipartisan compromise.
Yet those hard truths have done little to placate the spending hawks of the GOP conference, who have pressed the Speaker to hold the line on deficits even if it means shutting down the government, and are thundering again this week against the final tranche of 2024 funding bills.
“We are back in Ryan-Boehner swamp mode where the omnibus is written behind closed doors,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said Tuesday on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “Members are told to take it or leave it, and although Republicans control the House, more Democrats vote for it than Republicans because it spends more money than when Pelosi was in charge.”
The frustrations reflect the dashed expectations of many Republicans as the long-drawn fight over 2024 spending is poised to wrap up.
Conservatives had entered this Congress hoping to use their new majority to address two long-standing gripes: top-down negotiations, where leaders dictate virtually all the terms of legislation, and massive deficit spending that’s compounded under both parties to produce a $33 trillion national debt.
At the start of 2023, conservatives had pushed successfully for a series of new rules designed to spread power across the GOP conference and lend rank-and-file members more control over legislation.
Party leaders, however, have faced a different reality, forced to forge bipartisan deals on must-pass bills, including those funding the government. It was such a compromise that led to the toppling of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). And Johnson, confronting those same dynamics, has repeatedly opted to keep the government open, scoring small conservative victories but not the deep cuts to spending demanded by his right flank.
It’s a strategy that’s not sitting well with the conservatives.
“The bottom line is, this isn’t what the Republicans who sent us here to Washington to do what we said we would do — this is not doing what we said we would do,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said Tuesday. “There is no way to describe it as doing what we said we would do. There are a handful of crumbs.”
“I want any Republican to tell me how we’re holding the administration accountable,” he added. “I’ll wait.”
GOP leaders had already angered the conservatives by endorsing a deal earlier in the month on the first tranche of six appropriations bills, which Biden signed into law March 9. On Tuesday morning, party leaders announced a deal on the six remaining bills, which completes the full slate of appropriations measures for fiscal 2024.
The final piece of the package — legislation to fund the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — stalled the process but came together after negotiations between House Republicans and the White House.
Top lawmakers said committee staff is working to finalize legislative text, which they hope to release and consider “as soon as possible.” Biden said he will sign the package “immediately.”
The details of the package were unclear as of Tuesday, but a source familiar with the talks told The Hill that the DHS bill would be a full-year measure and not a continuing resolution, which leaders were eyeing over the weekend.
Even without the specifics, conservatives were quick to bash the deal — which encompasses funding for roughly three-quarters of the federal government — taking aim at the process that brought it about.
“Leadership in both parties look for a number to pass a budget and if that solves problems great but if it doesn’t it’s just a numbers game,” Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) told The Hill in a text message.
Asked if he thinks this package will solve problems, the Tennessee Republican responded: “Nope.”
The criticism echoes what a group of 43 conservatives voiced in a letter Monday. They called on their GOP colleagues to reject the appropriations package — before knowing the specifics — if it lacks conservative border security policy that hard-liners have pushed for all Congress.
“[W]e ask you to join us in rejecting the appropriations package (or anything similar) slated to be before the House that will directly fund these disastrous policies,” they wrote, after listing a host of elements from H.R. 2, the border bill House Republicans approved last year.
It is also emblematic of the larger crusade conservatives have led all Congress, accusing leadership of cutting them out of critical stages of government funding negotiations; chiding Johnson for using fast-track processes to circumvent hard-liners and move legislation on the floor; and slamming top lawmakers for not prioritizing conservative border security policy as part of the shutdown showdowns.
“The consequences here are the American people left holding the bag with a trillion dollars of debt every 100 days and policies that are at odds with them, an unsecure border and people like Laken Riley are dead,” Roy said, referring to the Georgia college student who police say was killed by a man who crossed the border illegally.
Some hard-liners, however, are reserving judgment after leadership announced a deal, waiting to state their opinion until after they parse through the particulars.
“The process has always been with the designated leaders but the ‘devil is in the details’ … need to see the specific numbers before commenting,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) told The Hill in a text message.
Time, however, is not on their side.
Members in both chambers are finding themselves behind the eight ball, scrambling to get the agreement over the finish line by Friday’s midnight deadline — a reality that is raising the prospect of a possible weekend shutdown.
Conservatives throughout this Congress have demanded Johnson provide them with at least 72 hours to review legislative text once it is released. And in the Senate, unanimous consent is needed to fast-track consideration of the package, a possibility that remains an open question.
Leaders initially planned to release the text of the appropriations plan Sunday, but hang-ups over the DHS bill delayed that process. Appropriators in both chambers were looking to move a continuing resolution to keep the department funded at current levels through the end of the fiscal year, but White House negotiators rejected that option Saturday.
As lawmakers wait to review the text, conservatives are hammering away,
“I came to DC to stop Washington’s spending and secure the border, and will be voting against any swampbus,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) wrote on X.
“I urge my colleagues to heed Madison’s words and do the same.”