Speaker Mike Johnson’s right flank disgruntled by secretive $1 trillion spending deal
As a funding deadline looms Friday and Congress scrambles to prepare a trillion dollar spending package, conservatives are slamming Speaker Mike Johnson for keeping the massive measure’s details secret and rushing toward a vote.
The text for a $1 trillion bill that must pass in both the House and Senate before midnight Friday has yet to be released despite a rule mandating that members have 72 hours to read through the package.
Failing to pass the appropriations package before Saturday would result in a partial government shutdown, as funding for several federal agencies will expire.
However, Speaker Mike Johnson said that the 72-hour rule is ‘not sacred’ and kept the door open to bending the rule in order to avoid a shutdown.
Conservative members, though, want to be given time to read through the details of the bill, which some say could be around 2,000 pages in length.
‘How you gonna read 2,000 pages in 24 hours or even 48 hours,’ House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., told DailyMail.com. ‘We ought to follow our rules.’
‘You don’t even know what’s in there and what’s not in there,’ he added.
Speaker Mike Johnson has yet to release the text for a bill that is expected to be 2,000 pages
House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good says he wants time to read through the deal, which he had not seen as of Wednesday morning, saying Johnson should follow the 72-hour rule
The bill includes funding for six government agencies including the Departments of Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations and the Legislative Branch.
Text of the package was expected to be released over the weekend so Congress could pass the bill well before the funding deadline Friday evening.
But negotiations on Department of Homeland Security (DHS) funding held up the release of the bill.
While the Speaker and other leaders were still negotiating, Good and 40 other Republicans released a letter Monday saying that the far-right border security bill, H.R. 2, must be a part of any measure or they will vote no.
On Tuesday, Speaker Johnson announced that Congress and the White House had struck a deal on the appropriations package and hashed out DHS spending.
Still, as of Wednesday afternoon, the bill had not been released.
‘Here’s the dirty little secret in this town: They don’t like you to have time to review a bill that they know the American people aren’t going to love,’ Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told DailyMail.com.
‘Mike Johnson is doing what he can in a tough environment against Chuck Schumer and the president, who want to undermine our security, but I don’t think it’s enough.’
‘I don’t think Republicans should be jamming through a bill that we its have less than 72 hours to read and doesn’t do the job on the border.’
‘If this bill sits out for two weeks, it will get pilloried like a piñata.’
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said the Speaker is doing enough to provide members time to review the text of the huge appropriations package
Roy was among the Republicans who signed the letter demanding H.R. 2 to be included in the appropriations package.
The inclusion of such provisions are unlikely, though, as they would surely be opposed by Democrats, which have a hand in creating the spending package.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., confirmed Wednesday the appropriations bills are still being worked on.
‘The next six appropriations bills will make significant investments in our national defense, for the wellbeing of our service members, for keeping the U.S. competitive against the Chinese Communist Party, and so much more,’ he posted on X.
‘We are working to get this done.’