Sen. McConnell Calls for Stopgap Spending Bill to Fund the Government

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) speaks to reporters in Washington on Oct. 4, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on Jan. 9 that a continuing resolution to keep funding the government at current spending levels will be needed—setting up an inevitable fight with House Republicans.

Mr. McConnell’s remarks come 10 days before the Jan. 19 deadline when some government agencies are set to run out of funding. The remaining agencies would shut down on Feb. 3.

While there is an agreement on the top-line government funding amount for the fiscal 2024 year, he said, “We need to prevent a government shutdown.

“And so, the obvious question is how long does the CR need to be. And that will be up to the majority leader and the speaker to determine the length of the CR.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) also favors a CR. He said on Jan. 9 he would not speculate how long a CR would be but that he'd try to get it done as soon as possible.

Over the weekend, Mr. Schumer and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) announced the top line at $1.59 trillion with $69 billion in discretionary spending that was in a side deal struck earlier this year between former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and President Joe Biden—bringing the total spending amount to almost $1.66 trillion. The $1.59 trillion figure was also agreed to by Mr. McCarthy and President Biden as part of increasing the debt ceiling.

Mr. Johnson’s office sent a memo to members saying that “the speaker negotiated from a position of strength with the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House to deliver the most favorable budget agreement Republicans have achieved in over a decade.” The office cited a possible $200 billion in cuts over the next 10 years, with $16 billion in cuts this year.

The budget deal includes $886 billion in defense spending, with a 5.2 percent pay raise for members of the military and $704 billion for other discretionary spending.

The deal made between Mr. Schumer and Mr. Johnson includes an additional $10 billion in additional IRS personnel cuts this year on top of the $10 billion in such cuts already set for this year under the debt ceiling agreement. That means that IRS personnel cuts scheduled for next year were moved to this year.

It also consists of $6.1 billion in COVID spending cuts.

Moreover, Mr. Johnson’s office said the deal allows for Republicans to fight for more conservative victories such as appropriations policy riders and reprioritizing funding along the lines of the top-line spending figure.

However, the hardline conservative Freedom Caucus slammed the deal, calling it “a total failure” and “even worse than we thought.”

Some Republicans are calling for shutting down the government.

“Shut down the border or shut down the government,” Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) posted on X, formerly Twitter.

“What we can’t do is do what Republicans always do, which is ...  to go cut some watered-down deal that won’t do the job in order to get something else,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told Iris Tao of The Epoch Times’ sister outlet, NTD, a cable network.

President Biden gave his blessing to the Johnson-Schumer spending deal and said in a statement that it “moves us one step closer to preventing a needless government shutdown and protecting important national priorities.”

“It rejects deep cuts to programs hardworking families count on and provides a path to passing full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people and are free of any extreme policies,” he stated.

President Biden called on congressional Republicans to “do their job, stop threatening to shut down the government, and fulfill their basic responsibility to fund critical domestic and national security priorities, including my supplemental request.”

That supplemental funding request includes $60 billion in supplemental assistance for Ukraine, $14.3 billion for Israel, and other funding such as for the Indo-Pacific and to deal with processing illegal immigrants at the southern border.

Senate Democrats and Republicans have been negotiating on a border package, but Mr. Johnson wants the Democrat-controlled Senate to pass a border security bill the GOP-controlled House passed earlier this year. That is something that has virtually no chance of happening, let alone becoming law under President Biden, who has said he would veto it if it came to his desk.

A recent report from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shows that the number of non-detained illegal immigrants inside the United States has exceeded 6 million, up from just over 3 million in 2020, former President Donald Trump’s final year in office.

Also, the total number of known illegal southern border crossings has jumped from around 405,000 in 2020 to 2.1 million in 2023.

Nationwide, the number of illegal immigrant encounters has more than tripled over that period—from 647,000 in President Trump’s final year in office to 3.2 million in President Biden’s third year in the White House.

Amid the continued influx of illegal immigrants into the country, Republicans continue to push for border security. Among the most vocal are House Freedom Caucus members.

“Republicans agreeing to spending levels $69 billion higher than last summer’s debt ceiling ‘deal’, with no significant policy wins is nothing but another loss for America,” Rep. Bob Good (R-Va.), the new chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, posted on X on the day Mr. Johnson announced the deal.

“At some point, having the House majority has to matter,” he continued. “Stop funding this spending with an open border!”

Finally, the House deal struck with Mr. Schumer could lead to Mr. Johnson facing the same fate as Mr. McCarthy, who was ousted through a motion to vacate. When asked by CNN on Jan. 8, Mr. Roy did not rule out that possibility. It only takes one House member to put forth such a motion.

Tom Ozimek contributed to this report.