Report: ‘Significant’ Concerns over Speaker Mike Johnson’s Ability to Deliver ‘Conservative Wins’
Reports suggest that House conservatives are increasingly fretting about Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) inability to deliver conservative wins.
Speaker Johnson, the White House, and congressional leaders announced a spending deal framework on Sunday to fund the government for the rest of the year.
The spending deal would follow the spending levels as stipulated by the Fiscal Responsibility Act (FRA), the debt ceiling deal struck by former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and President Joe Biden. Although the deal has some moderate cuts to the IRS budget among other things, it has rankled members of the House Freedom Caucus and conservatives in both chambers of Congress.
“It’s even worse than we thought. Don’t believe the spin. Once you break through typical Washington math, the true total programmatic spending level is $1.658 trillion — not $1.59 trillion. This is total failure,” the Freedom Caucus wrote.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) wrote, “I am a NO to the Johnson Schumer budget deal. This $1.6 Trillion dollar budget agreement does nothing to secure the border, stop the invasion, or stop the weaponized government targeting Biden’s political enemies and innocent Americans. So much for the power of the purse!”
I am a NO to the Johnson Schumer budget deal.
This $1.6 Trillion dollar budget agreement does nothing to secure the border, stop the invasion, or stop the weaponized government targeting Biden’s political enemies and innocent Americans.
So much for the power of the purse!
— Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene🇺🇸 (@RepMTG) January 8, 2024
Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) told Breitbart News in a statement, “As the House Freedom Caucus has noted, the actual spending levels in this plan are nearly $100 billion above what we are being promised, but mostly preserve all the pre-existing funding for Biden’s priorities. At a time when we’re $34 trillion in debt and inflation is hollowing out America’s middle class, Republicans can and must do better than this.”
Now, it appears that a “well-plugged-in House Republican” told Punchbowl News that there is a “growing” feeling about Johnson’s inability to achieve wins.
“Significant concerns growing about Mike’s ability to jump to this level and deliver conservative wins. Growing feeling that he’s in way, way over his head,” the House Republican, who is not a Freedom Caucus member, said. “As much as there was valid criticism and frustration with Kevin, Mike is struggling to grow into the job and is just getting rolled even more than McCarthy did.”
Although Punchbowl News said it is “too early” to say that Johnson’s days as Speaker are numbered, the outlet did note that Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) said he is having “sober conversations” about the “continued failure theater” that is the House Republican Conference.
After saying in November that the Speaker is “done” with stop-gap spending bills, otherwise known as a continuing resolutions (CRs), Johnson’s operation is now softening their opposition to it.
Johnson reportedly got reamed by the Heritage Foundation after the conservative group said it opposes the spending deal and is demanding the inclusion of H.R. 2, the House-passed border legislation, in a spending bill.
Heritage Action Executive Vice President Ryan Walker said in a statement on Tuesday:
The American people are begging Congress to secure the border and rein in the unprecedented government spending and woke policies that are making it impossible for them to afford basics like groceries and gas. As reported, the spending framework does neither. Conservative lawmakers should not support appropriations bills that perpetuate Biden’s destructive economic agenda while funding the ongoing invasion at our borders.
We commend Speaker Johnson’s work to improve upon prior spending agreements by further reducing spending at the IRS and clawing back some useless COVID-19 spending, but the topline numbers remain far too high.
He added, “While negotiating FY24 spending, any bill that addresses or funds the border or immigration policy—like the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) appropriations bill—should include H.R. 2 in its entirety.”
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
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