Washington Wednesday: Wanting a new normal

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday the 12th of June, 2024. This is WORLD Radio and we’re so glad to have you along with us today. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

MARY REICHARD, HOST: And I’m Mary Reichard. First up on The World and Everything in It: Washington Wednesday.

Around this time last year, Congress raised the debt ceiling in exchange for an agreement that’s supposed to limit how much the government spends in 2025. How is that shaping up so far as the Congress starts rolling out appropriations bills?

EICHER: World’s Washington Bureau reporter Leo Briceno has the story.

LEO BRICENO: Last week, the House of Representatives passed an appropriations bill known as MILCON-VA—the first of 12 spending bills needed to fund the government in 2025. This one funds military construction and the department of veteran’s affairs.

Its passage is step one toward what Republicans like Texas Representative Chip Roy hope is a new normal. He told me he doesn’t like the bill’s $378 billion price tag, but he supported it anyway.

CHIP ROY: What I do want is regular order. I want to be able to move bills, I’ve always wanted that. So long as we’re doing that and offering amendments on it, I’m for it, even if I don’t love the bill. So long as we’re doing it through the kind of normal processes—let’s move it and see what happens.

The “normal process,” as Roy called it, hasn’t been used for almost half a century. Instead, Congress has paid for all federal expenses each year in a single omnibus package—usually thousands of pages long. Republicans say the rushed procedure leads Congress to increase spending without understanding exactly where tax dollars are going.

Roy and other Republicans say returning to the 12-bill process is central to getting spending under control.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson promised to do just that during the funding battle for 2024. Here’s Johnson at a press conference in January.

MIKE JOHNSON: And it brings Congress much closer to regular order which is our big commitment here. In keeping with my commitment to bring members into the legislative process, I’ve spoken and received feedback from many members all across the Republican conference.

He ultimately fell short of passing the 12 bills this Spring. Now Johnson is trying to make good on that promise for 2025. But already, just one-twelfth of the way there, Johnson faces roadblocks from within the party and without.

Johnson must negotiate to produce legislation that will make it past the Senate—where Democrats hold a majority—and the White House.

He hopes to do that by working within the parameters of an agreement negotiated by his predecessor, former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

KEVIN MCCARTHY: We decided that that you had to spend less. And we achieved that goal. Is it everything I wanted? No. But sitting with one House, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic president who didn’t want to meet with us? I think we did pretty dang good for the American public.

McCarthy heard there shortly after negotiating the Fiscal Responsibility Act in May 2023. At the time, Congress was locked in a battle over whether to raise the amount the government was allowed to borrow. In exchange for lifting that limit, McCarthy secured an agreement from President Joe Biden to limit government funding increases to just one percent in 2025.

Johnson is counting on Democrats honoring that agreement. But many Democrats feel that Republicans are trying to cut more than they promised. Here’s congresswoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida, the ranking member on the Appropriations subcommittee on military constructions, veterans’ affairs, and related agencies. I asked her about the bill outside the House of Representatives.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: The bill’s allocation doesn’t align with the Fiscal Responsibility Act where we agreed—and it’s law—that we’re going to increase defense discretionary and non-defense discretionary by 1%, which we don’t do here. So, this Republican bill, for the first time in all the years that I’ve been on the committee, actually cuts funding for the VA from the previous fiscal year and funding for military construction.

Spending isn’t the only issue. Republicans also want to use the appropriations bills to pass some long-standing policy priorities. The MILCON-VA bill, for instance, carries prohibitions on funding for abortion; eliminates funding for diversity, equity, and inclusion measures; and more. Wasserman-Schultz argues that a bill she proposed adheres more closely to the agreement Biden struck with McCarthy.

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: The bill, but for these poison-pill riders and the decision by the leadership on their side not to adhere to the Fiscal Responsibility Act you wouldn’t really be able to tell the difference between the bill he brought to the congress and the one that I did.

President Biden has said he will veto the Republican version of the MILCON-VA bill if it reaches his desk. To do that, it would first need to pass the Senate, where Democrats hold the Majority. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has not said whether he intends to take up the measure.

Meanwhile, Johnson faces pushback within the GOP as members push him to advance conservative policy aims. Some Republicans are already calling for Johnson’s job.

His most vocal critic, congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, doesn’t think the speaker’s efforts are going anywhere.

GREENE: It’s absurd, and Republicans want to be up like, ‘oh we’re going to be up here passing our 12 separate appropriations bills’ that are going nowhere by the way. They’re not going nowhere. Biden already said he’s going to veto this one, MILCON, so what a waste of time! It’s an absolute waste of time. We should be actually doing something. Because everyone that voted to send us here wants us to do something.

Greene’s pessimism isn’t just theoretical. In the past, Republicans have shied away from funding fights on the eve of an election. Government funding runs out in October, and a government shutdown could hurt Republicans at the polls in November.

Republicans could pass a funding extension known as a continuing resolution, or CR, before the Fall, then come back in January, after the election, and press the attack on funding.

It’s risky, though, because if Republicans don’t retain the House, spending could be completely out of their hands.

I asked Roy if he would stand behind the plan.

ROY: Yeah, I’ve been pretty public in saying that we ought to consider doing a CR, but only if that CR extends into ‘25. I have no interest in a lame duck CR. I think if you do that and you do it before August, you can continue to have a full and unfettered debate on appropriations and see what we can get done. But yeah, do a CR before August, get it out, send it into 2025, and then move forward.

For now, Republicans will attempt to use the rest of the summer to continue passing their appropriations packages. And next up on that list later this month is Defense funding.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Leo Briceno.

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