Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, just ten days away from possibly presiding over his first shutdown, again promoted an already-mocked proposal to fund the federal government, while again refusing to offer any details at a press conference on Tuesday.
Johnson’s proposed continuing resolution is a “ladder CR” or “laddered CR,” which would be made up of different parts, theoretically funding different parts of the government at different times. Politico last week described it as “a rolling series of partial shutdown threats affecting different federal agencies at different times.”
“Johnson said there was a ‘growing recognition’ that a continuing resolution might be necessary to avoid a shutdown. OK, fine, all good. Then he told reporters he’s considering a ‘laddered’ CR as a way to keep the government’s lights on.”
“Say what now?” Politico added, mockingly, calling it “a recipe for a slow-motion debacle.”
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“The details of the strategy remain eminently unclear.”
Little has changed across the past five days since Johnson’s ladder CR was proposed.
“Can you just tell us more specifically when you expect to make a decision on a CR?” a reporter asked Speaker Johnson Tuesday, “Because again, just 11 days, very close to that clock. Also you walk us through this ladder CR approach for people who may not understand that? And, why consider something new when you’re less than two weeks out?”
“Well listen,” Johnson replied, “our number one objective here is to take care of our obligations and do it in a responsible manner. We want to be good stewards of the public’s treasury.”
“Because we’re in the situation that we’re in, deeply in debt, we have to do this, we have to think about this differently. So with regard to the ladder CR or maybe a two-tiered CR, it’s one of the ideas that has been discussed. There’s nothing magical or mysterious about it, it would just be effectively two phases.”
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“You would do one part, a subset of the bills by a December date, and the rest of it by a January date,” he added. “But again, I’m not going to show you all the cards right now.”
“I’ll tell you I’m very encouraged and I think the American people are encouraged when they see the hard work that’s being done here. We made a commitment that we will get back to the business of actually passing appropriations bills that has not been done here and a long long time.”
With just ten days left, Republicans this week have focused on bringing forth legislation to attach to funding bills, including defunding the Office of Vice President Kamala Harris, defunding the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, reducing IRS Commissioner Daniel Werfel’s salary to $1, and defunding two Offices of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility within the Biden administration.
Watch Johnson below or at this link.