IS THE SPEAKER'S COMMITMENT CREDIBLE?

All I want for Christmas is the regular order appropriations.  We're likely to have more shutdown theater.  "Speaker Johnson says House will not approve ‘Christmas omnibus’"  Unfortunately, there are a few Advent candles yet to be lit.

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) is promising that the House will not approve a single, massive bill to fund the entire government in December — a scenario feared by conservatives — despite a stopgap that’s expected to clear the House this week expiring on Dec. 20.

“There won’t be a Christmas omnibus,” Johnson said in a press conference Tuesday, reiterating a message he relayed privately to members in a House GOP conference meeting that morning.

It is a bold promise from the Speaker, who has struggled to corral the slim House GOP majority behind an effective strategy to pressure the Democratic-controlled Senate and White House on spending.

And it would also defy historical precedent. Congress has regularly passed omnibus spending bills after a funding deadline butts up against end-of-year holidays, when members are eager to quickly finish legislative business and return to their families.

Conservatives have aimed to avoid that scenario, fearing Democrats and a lame-duck President Biden would load the bill with their own priorities. They had pushed for a stopgap spending bill that extended funding through March 2025, but it failed on the House floor.

The House is expected to vote Wednesday on a continuing resolution (CR) to extend government funding until Dec. 20 in order to avoid a government shutdown on Oct. 1. While many conservatives opposed to any kind of stopgap are expected to vote against the bill, it is likely to pass due to support from Democrats.

Democrats like to print money and buy off preferred constituencies, and yet, the track record in this century suggests Official Washington prefer these shutdown dramas to regular order.

If there are twelve appropriations for the Constitutionally-specified federal functions, there are opportunities for a fiscally-minded Member of Congress or a president bound by the Constitution to object to those irrelevant sprinkles, irrespective of the Urgency with which some of the kids clamor for them.  A bundle, on the other hand, in which all those federal functions are at risk unless the omnibus passes, is an omnibus with lots of kids carrying ice cream treats on board.

The House appears to be struggling to temper two principles: that the federal functions be funded, and that the government not borrow too much printed money, by making it harder to bundle the functions, sprinkles, and crap sandwiches.

I'll credit the Speaker with success in shutting down the ice cream truck.

Johnson pointed to a move last year that extended government funding to two separate dates past December as evidence that he could avoid an omnibus this year. The House eventually approved government funding in two separate large packages, but only after multiple stopgaps to buy lawmakers time.

“We have broken the Christmas omni, and I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” Johnson said.

Johnson is also ruling out other large packages of funding legislation, such as “minibuses” — bills that combine funding for some, but not all, areas of government. Government funding is theoretically divided up among 12 appropriations bills.

“We don’t want any buses. We’re not going to do any buses, OK?” Johnson said.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) pushed a similar message, and painted this week’s stopgap bill as a win because it did not include other funding that Senate Democrats wanted.

And one salutary effect of assorted Tea Party spending hawks and Trumpians within the Republican caucus is laying bare the nexus of Official Washington and big-spending Democrats.  "Might the eternal shutdown-continuing resolution-debt ceiling cycle be the way by which Official Washington continues its preferred policies?"

For the moment, the reluctant spenders are reining in the free spenders.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) pushed a similar message, and painted this week’s stopgap bill as a win because it did not include other funding that Senate Democrats wanted.

“This is always a tough negotiation. The Senate wanted to try to spend more money, and our Speaker stood up to the Senate and said, ‘No, we’re not going to do that,’” Scalise said. “They wanted to play this Christmas Eve Omni game that they used to play, having an omnibus drop on Christmas Eve, and nobody’s read the bill, and it just gets voted on, everybody leaves town. We said no to that last year, and Mike Johnson, as Speaker, is saying no to that again this year.”

Johnson noted that the House has passed five of the 12 regular funding bills — which were packed with GOP priorities and considered dead on arrival in the Senate — while the Senate has passed none, pointing the finger at Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).

“I’m going to hope, I’m going to plead, I’m going to urge the Senate to do their job. As the Leader Scalise noted, they have not done that. This is Chuck Schumer’s fault,” Johnson said.

Perhaps Mr Whipple is pinning his hopes on a change in control of the House and a larger majority in the Senate after the election.  Whether that comes to pass or not, another continuing resolution standoff during Advent will not be edifying.  Perhaps the bond traders will provide clarity first.