- After three weeks, the House elected Rep. Mike Johnson to serve as Speaker of the House.
- Now, Congress has until November 17 to avert a government shutdown.
It took three weeks for congressional Republicans to agree on a new speaker of the House. Now Congress has the same amount of time to find a solution to prevent a looming government shutdown.
On Wednesday, the House majority voted for GOP Rep. Mike Johnson to serve as speaker, ending weeks of in-party fighting — and coming after a long list of failed candidates for the role. But now that the speaker's office is no longer vacant, the House can once again resume its legislative duties, like passing funding legislation before the government runs out of money after November 17.
Johnson on Monday detailed how he plans to structure the House's calendar over the next year, with funding legislation near the top of the agenda. According to his plan, he proposed the House pass a short-term funding measure that expires on January 15 or April 15 "based on what can obtain Conference consensus," along with discharging some of the remaining appropriations bills out of the House Appropriations Committee over the next week.
"This is an ambitious schedule, but if our Speaker can work across the Conference to unify our membership and build consensus, we can achieve our necessary objectives," Johnson wrote.
If this government funding discussion sounds familiar, that's because the House faced the same situation just last month and did not reach a deal until September 30, just hours before the government was set to shut down.
Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy struggled to get members of his party to agree on a government funding solution because they demanded steep spending cuts that Democrats would not vote for. The last minute 45-day short-term bill ensured pay did not lapse for troops, and kept the Federal Aviation Administration and National Flood Insurance program operational.
Now, the House is gearing up for another round of debate over what should be funded in the upcoming legislation. In the September shutdown battle, GOP lawmakers sparred with each other — and Democrats — over issues including increasing funding for border security and whether funding for Ukraine should be included.
It's likely similar demands will be put on the table this time around, and it also comes after President Joe Biden requested billions of dollars in funding for Israel and Ukraine, along with a separate request to fund domestic priorities like childcare and natural disaster response.
It remains to be seen if Johnson can promptly avert a government shutdown, or if he will face the same challenges as McCarthy in getting all members of his party on board. Regardless, the stakes are high for Americans. In the event of a shutdown, thousands of federal workers would be furloughed, leaving them without paychecks until the government regains funding. Additionally, while Social Security benefits would still go out, verification of the benefits would be delayed due to customer service shortages, which could bar recipients from applying for loans and housing assistance.
And while Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack previously said SNAP benefits would still go out in the event of a shutdown, low-income mothers and children could lose aid from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC.
"We need to move swiftly to address our national security needs and to avoid a shutdown in 22 days," Biden said in a Wednesday statement. "Even though we have real disagreements about important issues, there should be mutual effort to find common ground wherever we can."