{"id":18468,"date":"2023-09-30T02:25:51","date_gmt":"2023-09-30T07:25:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=18468"},"modified":"2023-09-30T02:25:53","modified_gmt":"2023-09-30T07:25:53","slug":"mccarthys-last-ditch-plan-to-keep-the-government-open-collapses-making-a-shutdown-almost-certain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=18468","title":{"rendered":"McCarthy\u2019s last-ditch plan to keep the government open collapses, making a shutdown almost certain"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2019s<\/u><\/a> last-ditch plan to keep the federal government temporarily open<\/u><\/a> collapsed in dramatic fashion Friday as a robust faction of hard-right holdouts<\/u><\/a> rejected the package, making a shutdown almost certain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

McCarthy\u2019s right-flank Republicans refused to support the bill despite its steep spending cuts of nearly 30% to many agencies and severe border security provisions, calling it insufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House and Democrats rejected the Republican approach as too extreme. The vote was 198-232, with 21 hard-right Republicans voting to sink the package. The Democrats voted against it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The bill\u2019s complete failure a day before Saturday\u2019s deadline to fund the government leaves few options to prevent a shutdown that will furlough federal workers, keep the military working without pay and disrupt programs and services for millions of Americans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A clearly agitated McCarthy left the House chamber. \u201cIt\u2019s not the end yet; I\u2019ve got other ideas,\u201d he told reporters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a>The outcome puts McCarthy\u2019s speakership in serious jeopardy with almost no political leverage to lead the House at a critical moment that has pushed the government into crisis. Even the failed plan, an extraordinary concession to immediately slash spending by one-third for many agencies, was not enough to satisfy the hard-right flank that has upturned his speakership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Senate pushed ahead Friday with its own plan favored by Republicans and Democrats to keep the government open while also bolstering Ukraine aid and U.S. disaster accounts. But that won\u2019t matter with the House in political chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White House has brushed aside McCarthy\u2019s overtures to meet with President Joe Biden after the speaker walked away from the debt deal<\/u><\/a> they brokered earlier this year that set budget levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cExtreme House Republicans are now tripling down on their demands to eviscerate programs millions of hardworking families count on,\u201d White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jean-Pierre said, \u201cThe path forward to fund the government has been laid out by the Senate with bipartisan support \u2014 House Republicans just need to take it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Catering to his hard-right flank, McCarthy had returned to the spending limits the conservatives demanded back in January as part of the deal-making to help him become the House speaker<\/u><\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His package would not have cut the Defense, Veterans or Homeland Security departments but would have slashed almost all other agencies by up to 30% \u2014 steep hits to a vast array of programs, services and departments Americans routinely depend on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also added strict new border security provisions that would kickstart building the wall at the southern border with Mexico, among other measures. Additionally, the package would have set up a bipartisan debt commission to address the nation\u2019s mounting debt load.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahead of voting, the Republican speaker all but dared his holdout colleagues to oppose the package a day before Saturday\u2019s almost certain shutdown<\/a>. The House bill would have kept operations open through Oct. 31.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEvery member will have to go on record where they stand,\u201d McCarthy said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked if he had the votes, McCarthy said, \u201cWe\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as soon as the floor debate began, McCarthy\u2019s chief Republican critic, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, announced he would be voting against the package, urging his colleagues to \u201cnot surrender.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The hard right, led by Gaetz, has been threatening McCarthy\u2019s ouster, with a looming vote to try to remove him from the speaker\u2019s office unless he meets the conservative demands. Still, it\u2019s unclear if any other Republican would have support from the House majority to lead the party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gaetz said afterward that the speaker\u2019s bill \u201cwent down in flames as I\u2019ve told you all week it would.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He and others rejecting the temporary measure want the House to instead keep pushing through the 12 individual spending bills needed to fund the government, typically a weeks-long process, as they pursue their conservative priorities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the Republican holdouts, including Gaetz, are allies of Donald Trump, who is Biden\u2019s chief rival in 2024. The former president has been encouraging the Republicans to fight hard for their priorities and even to \u201cshut it down.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The margin of defeat shocked even Republican members.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Mike Garcia, R-Calif., said: \u201cI think what this does, if anything, I think it\u2019s going to rally people around the speaker and go: \u2018Hey, the dysfunction here is not coming from leadership in this case. The dysfunction is coming from individuals that don\u2019t understand the implications of what we\u2019re doing here.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Garcia said, \u201cFor the people that claim this isn\u2019t good enough, I want to hear what good enough looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Republican, Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina, a member of the Freedom Caucus who supported the package, suggested the House was losing its leverage with the failed vote: \u201cWe control the purse strings. We just ceded them to the Senate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Republicans convened for a closed-door meeting later Friday afternoon that grew heated, lawmakers said, but failed to produce a new plan. Leaders announced the House would stay in session next week, rather than return home, to keep working on some of the 12 spending bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the Appropriations Committee, criticized the proposed Republican cuts as hurting law enforcement and education and taking food out of the mouths of millions. She said 275,000 children would lose access to Head Start, making it harder for parents to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a pointless charade with grave consequences for the American people,\u201d DeLauro said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 House Speaker Kevin McCarthy\u2019s last-ditch plan to keep the federal government temporarily open collapsed in dramatic fashion Friday as a robust faction of hard-right holdouts rejected the package, making a shutdown almost certain. McCarthy\u2019s right-flank Republicans refused to support the bill despite its steep spending cuts of nearly 30% to many agencies and severe border security provisions, calling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":18469,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[22698,1345,22884,22883],"class_list":["post-18468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-government-shutdown","tag-mccarthy","tag-open-government","tag-plan-failed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18470,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18468\/revisions\/18470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}