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Tags: shutdown | republicans | house | kevin mccarthy | spending

GOP Infighting, Spending Plans Increase Shutdown Odds

By    |   Thursday, 15 June 2023 11:02 AM EDT

The odds of a government showdown are growing, according to reports.

Rancor exists due to infighting between GOP lawmakers and with the House Republicans' decision to write spending bills that fall below caps that were part of the debt limit legislation negotiated by President Joe Biden and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy that is expected to spark a clash with Senate Democrats and the White House.

The legislation contains an agreement that sets new top lines for discretionary spending during the next two fiscal year, but McCarthy is pushing back at the figures, saying they represent a spending ceiling Congress can't go past, The Hill reported.

Republicans led by House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger, R-Texas, are planning to mark up spending for 2024 at levels set in 2022 in a plan to cut $120 billion in federal spending.

Democrats oppose such cuts. Their support is needed to pass the appropriations bill and prevent a partial government shutdown from taking place Oct. 1, so a potential collision looms over the scope of government spending.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats will oppose any spending plan that comes in at less than the debt ceiling levels approved in the deal.

Further, Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., the lead party member on the Appropriations Committee, said the strategy "all but guarantees a shutdown," and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., said House Republicans won't win support for Democrats for the cuts. Still, they are risking shutting down the government.

"The Senate is going to mark up to the deal that was made and so House Republicans are going to completely make themselves irrelevant [and] make their members vote on these deep, deep cuts, and it has no possibility of becoming law," Aguilar said Tuesday.

He also said McCarthy has created the situation with deals he has made to remain House speaker.

Meanwhile, McCarthy made several concessions to his opponents in January while running for the speaker position, including promises to fight for spending levels from 2022 to be maintained in 2024 and to refuse votes on any proposal that goes over those limits.

But McCarthy insisted, while defending the debt ceiling deal, that "we never promised we're going to be all at '22 levels. I said we would strive to get to the '22 level or the equivalent of that amount in cuts."

The Financial Responsibility Act, passed after the debt ceiling deal was reached, includes an incentive that pushes members of Congress to pass 12 appropriations bills by Jan. 1. If that doesn't happen, a continuing resolution would be put into place that caps spending at 99% of current levels and levies a 1% across-the-board cut to all government spending.

Military spending would be included in the cuts, leading to warnings that a cut in spending could harm national security, but lawmakers appear to be expecting a continuing resolution, which could create a showdown between Senate Democrats and House Republicans.

"My guess is we'll go ahead and pass the CR at the 99% level, and then if there's a shutdown, it'll be the Senate that shuts it down," said Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala.

Meanwhile, hard-line conservatives say they aren't making threats to force the government to shut down to get the spending levels they want.

Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., said he's not worried about a shutdown, but instead about reining in spending.

"The country's going to be permanently shut down if we don't get our spending under control," he said. "I'm tired of hearing, 'We'll do it tomorrow.' We're going to do it now or attempt to."

Sandy Fitzgerald

Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics. 

© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.


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The odds of a government showdown are growing, according to reports, due to infighting between GOP lawmakers.
shutdown, republicans, house, kevin mccarthy, spending
597
2023-02-15
Thursday, 15 June 2023 11:02 AM
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