As talks to strike a bipartisan funding deal withered last week, a spending extension to October seemed like Speaker Mike Johnson’s clearest path to avert a government shutdown. Democrats say not so fast.
Although lawmakers swear stopgap spending patches aren’t their preferred method of funding the government, at this point, the matter has become a fair question. Johnson and other leaders have repeatedly used continuing resolutions in place of forcing members on the House Appropriations Committee to find agreements, and the lesson from these standoffs, year after year, is that there is almost always enough votes to pass a CR.
Johnson now insists that another CR is the lone way to prevent a shutdown — only he wants this one to go for the rest of the fiscal year.