In the wake of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson reportedly deciding to go along with a “bipartisan” spending deal that delivers little conservatives want and much of what the left wants, conservative representatives and commentators with stronger spines are sounding off and slamming Johnson for his surrender.
The issue at hand is a multi-month Continuing Resolution, or spending bill passed in lieu of an actual budget. Speaker Johnson has defended the bill as being necessary to aid those needing to recover from natural disasters, namely farmers who he characterized as being in need of aid, while ignoring other problems with the spending bill.
Speaker Johnson said, commenting on the Continuing Resolution, “This is a small CR that we had to add things to that were out of our control. We’ve got manmade disasters. I wish it weren’t necessary. I wish we hadn’t had record hurricanes in the fall. And I wish our farmers were not in a bind so much that predators are not able to lend to them.”
Similarly, in a post about the matter on X, Speaker Johnson said, “Republicans CANNOT allow millions of Americans devastated by the historic hurricane season, or our struggling farmers, go without the help they desperately need. We will decide FY25 spending in March, when Trump is back in the WH and Republicans control the Senate and House.”
Conservatives sounded off. Senator Mike Lee (R-UT), for example, posted, “Many of the loudest, self-proclaimed ‘@DOGE Heroes’ in Congress will vote for the CR—even though it flies in the face of everything @DOGE is trying to fix & perpetuates the very problems Republicans railed against while campaigning this year. Then they’ll say ‘@DOGE will fix it!’”
On much the same note, Rep. Andy Biggs slammed fake conservatives who claimed to love the idea of the Department of Government Efficiency, but now are funding the Swamp. He said, “Pay attention to the members of Congress who have been all in for @DOGE for media attention but will vote for the short-term omnibus. They are the Swamp.”
Also joining in was Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ), who used some Christmas-themed wording to slam the horrible decision Speaker Johnson is making. He said, “‘Twas three days before the gov’t shutdown And I’m at my desk On page 54 of this 1,547 page mess. The CR is garbage Chocked full of carnage. I’ll be a hard no, I won’t stoop that low.”
Conservative commentators sounded off as well. For example, Federalist co-founder Sean Davis said, in a post on X, “Mike Johnson went from promising to never pass another omnibus to becoming the handmaiden of one of the most obscene lame duck omnibus spending bills in history. All this guy does is make promises he refuses to keep.”
On much the same note, Newsmax host Todd Starnes said, “Speaker Mike Johnson, who frequently uses his platform to literally preach to his fellow lawmakers, lied to the Republican caucus and Republican voters. Such irony. His CR is a huge victory for Democrats and they are getting hundreds of millions of dollars for their pet projects.”
Watch Speaker Johnson comment on Newsmax about the CR here:
Featured image credit: By Gage Skidmore from Surprise, AZ, United States of America – Mike Johnson, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=139920652
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