McCarthy’s struggle to gain leverage in Senate spending dispute.
The Willingness of House Conservatives to Grind the Appropriations Process
The willingness of House conservatives to grind the appropriations process to a halt is denying Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) leverage in a spending fight with the Senate that will soon come to a head.
The House Republicans Who Have Pledged to Vote No on Stopgap Spending Measure
The California Republican set the House on a collision course with Democrats in June when he agreed to draft spending bills $120 billion below the levels he brokered in a debt ceiling agreement with President Joe Biden.
The concession temporarily placated conservatives, who felt betrayed by the modest deal he struck with the president. Yet three months later, that very distrust has left McCarthy unable to negotiate from a position of strength.
The House has passed just one of its dozen appropriations bills with just 12 days until a government shutdown on Oct. 1. McCarthy succeeded in moving a bill for military construction and veterans benefits before the August recess but has since had to scrap plans to vote on two others.
House conservatives, who can deny McCarthy the votes he needs due to the GOP’s four-seat majority, want assurances that he will stick to his pledge to pursue deep spending cuts, and they’ve made demands of him on everything from border security to ending the “weaponization” of the Justice Department.
Passing the spending bills is just the opening offer on what will need to be a bipartisan compromise. Democrats, who control the White House and Senate, will inevitably reject the very demands hard-liners are forcing McCarthy to accept.
Yet if McCarthy can shore up his negotiating position by passing even some of the appropriations bills through the House, he has a shot at extracting concessions, however incremental, beyond what Republicans got in the debt ceiling agreement.
He’s proposed a one-month funding extension to buy lawmakers more time to get there, but even that ask has been met with resistance from McCarthy’s right flank, who see the stopgap bill as another opportunity to insist on a laundry list of demands.
That has left him weak in the face of a Senate that is largely united in its desire for more, not less, federal spending. The upper chamber has struggled to bring its own appropriations bills to the floor since it returned from recess — a handful of conservatives are throwing up obstacles in that chamber too — yet Democrats have an advantage McCarthy does not: the support of Senate Republican leadership, who want to keep federal spending at the levels negotiated in the debt limit agreement.
A separate emergency supplemental that would add another $24 billion in Ukraine aid, a nonstarter for many House conservatives, has reinforced bipartisan cooperation in the Senate.
The predicament is something of a reversal from the spring, when Senate Republicans lined up behind McCarthy as he negotiated the debt ceiling agreement with Biden, a deal only possible because the speaker demonstrated he could usher a conservative bill to raise the federal borrowing limit through the House.
He walked away with far less — committing to, in effect, a two-year freeze in federal spending — leading House conservatives to accuse him of violating the agreement he made in January to win the speaker’s gavel.
McCarthy, facing hard-liners now openly toying with the idea of deposing him, has alternated between frustration and the self-assured demeanor of a man who has survived the obstinance of his right flank before.
Conservatives aren’t just withholding their votes on must-pass legislation — they’re doing so content to let Washington slip into a government shutdown, judging that the political cost is worth it if it helps Republicans reset federal spending in Washington.
Of course, McCarthy fundamentally disagrees with that calculus. He argues to conservatives they are shooting themselves in the foot if they don’t give him space to pass the funding bills and are signaling that Republicans are closer to capitulation than victory.
“If you’re not willing to pass appropriations bills and you’re not willing to pass a continuing resolution that will allow you to pass the rest of the appropriation bills and you don’t want an omnibus, I don’t quite know what you want,” he said of the hard-liners in his conference on Monday.
It’s entirely possible Republicans will still coalesce around a short-term bill to keep the government open. The conservative Freedom Caucus reached a deal with McCarthy allies on Sunday to extend funding for a month in exchange for an 8% cut in federal spending and border security measures.
But more than a dozen conservatives have already come out against the deal.
McCarthy has begun to take a more aggressive approach to overcome their opposition. He’s teed up a Wednesday vote on a Pentagon appropriations bill after canceling it last week, in effect daring conservatives to oppose funding for the military. The move comes after he defiantly brushed off threats of a no-confidence vote by members of his conference.
Even if McCarthy is successful in jump-starting the appropriations process, his opening bid, whether for a stopgap or the set of 12 appropriations bills, will be a nonstarter for Democrats, who point out that their spending bills passed out of the Appropriations Committee with overwhelming bipartisan support.
With the House in disarray — sniping within the conference on Monday reached levels not seen since the speakership election in January — Republicans may be forced to buckle under the weight of blame assigned to them in past shutdown fights.
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For now, Senate Republicans are looking on in horror.
“The House is a raucous, partisan body by design of our founders. I don’t think they intended it to be dysfunctional,” Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-ND) told the Washington Examiner. “When process turns to chaos, you don’t have good outcomes.”
How are House conservatives using the appropriations process to push for their agenda?
Riations, you don’t get a seat at the table for the negotiations,” McCarthy told a group of House conservatives in a private meeting last week, according to a person in the room. “You don’t get a vote on the final product.”
But for conservatives, it’s not just about the appropriations process — it’s about reshaping the Republican Party’s identity and priorities. The appropriations bills provide an opportunity for them to push for their agenda, even if they know it’s unlikely to become law.
They see the upcoming funding fight as a chance to demonstrate their commitment to fiscal conservatism, to show their base that they are willing to fight for limited government and reduced spending.
And they’re willing to use any means necessary to achieve their goals, even if it means grinding the appropriations process to a halt and risking a government shutdown.
This willingness to disrupt the normal functioning of government is not new for House conservatives. They’ve done it before, most notably in 2013 when they forced a government shutdown in an attempt to defund Obamacare.
That shutdown was widely seen as a political disaster for Republicans, but it didn’t deter conservatives from using similar tactics in the years since. In fact, it has become a common strategy for them to leverage their power within the House to push for their agenda, even if it means risking political backlash.
But this time, the stakes are even higher. With Democrats in control of the White House and Senate, House Republicans have less leverage than ever before. And without McCarthy able to corral his own caucus, it’s unclear how Republicans will be able to influence the final spending bills.
The upcoming funding fight is just the latest example of the deep divisions within the Republican Party. It’s a battle between the establishment and the insurgents, between pragmatism and idealism, between compromising and standing on principle.
And it’s a battle that will have real consequences. If Republicans can’t come together and pass the necessary funding bills, the government will shut down, causing chaos and disruption for millions of Americans.
It’s time for House conservatives to think carefully about their strategy. Is grinding the appropriations process to a halt worth the potential damage to their party and the country?
There’s a time for principled stands and there’s a time for pragmatism. This funding fight is not the time to prioritize ideology over governing.
House conservatives need to recognize that they have a responsibility to their constituents and to the American people. They were elected to govern, not to disrupt.
It’s time for them to put aside their differences and work with their colleagues to pass the necessary funding bills. It’s time for them to show that they can be responsible leaders, capable of finding common ground and getting things done.
If they’re unable to do so, they risk further alienating themselves from their own party and from the American people. And they risk losing the opportunity to shape the future of the Republican Party and the country.
Grinding the appropriations process to a halt may be a tactical victory for House conservatives, but it’s a strategic mistake. It’s time for them to reconsider their approach and start working towards real solutions for the American people.
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