Instead of one gigantic omnibus spending bill— the old Pelosi way of passing a budget— Republicans, at the insistence of their far right flank, pledged to pass one departmental budget at a time. And then— who would have guessed?— that same far right flank blocked the bills from even being voted on. So MAGA Mike started ignoring them and teamed up with the Democrats to pass two pretty gigantic “minibus” spending bills. The wing nuts voted against the first one last week and against the second one this morning ($1.2 trillion— 70% of which is the Defense Department). My way or the highway… or, in this case, my way or we shut down the government (so Trump can blame the chaos and dysfunction on Biden). The one today is to keep the departments of Homeland Security, Defense, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and State, the IRS, and general government and foreign operations open and functioning. Plenty of Republicans would vote to shutter the IRS, Education Department, Labor Department, Health and Human Services any day of the week. Defense and Homeland Security were a little trickier for them, which is how Scalise and MAGA Mike persuaded enough of them to vote for it. 101 Republicans voted for it and 112 against it. Just 22 Democrats had the guts to vote no. I mean who likes genocide? It passed 286-134 with Marjorie Traitor Greene bellowing about how she woukld remove MAGA Mike from the speakership.
The hard right MAGAt types have a million and one things they don’t like and are complaining about. Example: Missouri Neo-fascist Eric Burlison hates the FBI, and wants to punish them so he’s angry that the bill funds construction on their new headquarters. All the extremists were whistling the same tune on this one. Far right sociopath Barry Moore (R-AL): “The swamp’s new spending package released while you were sleeping includes $200 MILLION for a new FBI HQ. We can’t fix weaponized government if we’re funding it.” I guessed he’d be a no vote— and he was. So were all the members of the "Freedom" Caucus who had been campaigning against it all week.
Chip Roy (R-TX), Congress’ biggest crybaby, who ran to Bannon’s podcast and railed that the bill is “an abomination,” was on Twitter yesterday complaining about dozens of provisions in what he labeled the “Swamp Omnibus.” He also accused MAGA Mike of lacking a backbone. “I don’t even have words for any Republican that votes for this bill. I promise you I will not be going out and supporting any Republican who votes for this bill, for any position ever again. It’s absolutely unsupportable by anybody who is a self-proclaimed conservative.” He’s against border security, against the FBI, against the UN, military assistance to our allies, against battling pandemics, against science, against… well, Chip Roy doesn’t much believe in government at all, which is what you might expect from a neanderthal Climate Change denier.
Nick Wu and Daniella Diaz reported yesterday that Hakeem Jeffries has been supporting MAGA Mike’s legislative proposals— including bad ones like the TikTok ban— and would give him all the backing he needs today for the minibus. They wrote that MM “is increasingly relying on Democrats to pass major legislation, a recognition that it’s nearly impossible to get his fractured two-vote majority unified on any potentially polarizing topic. The tactic has left conservatives fuming that Johnson is sidestepping a Rules Committee they control that is supposed to vet bills for the floor. It’s also effectively put Democrats in the position of begrudging helpmates to a GOP speaker whose reign they’re eager to end in November. At times, Johnson is winning more of their votes on big bills than he is Republican ones. But many Democrats are fine with it— because they see Johnson’s dependence on them as a point of leverage that has helped them extract victories they wouldn’t have otherwise snagged... Democrats see the very same spending bills as much more palatable than the steep cuts and [fascist] riders that Republicans had initially pushed for.”
Despite some grousing among Democrats about the gridlock of the House and the dragged-out negotiations that shaped the spending bills, they’re more than willing to help the GOP speaker pass bills they largely see as policy victories.
“That’s the world we’re living in, and that’s what it takes to get it passed. I wish it wasn’t that way, but that’s what we’re dealing with, and Democrats are contributing to the solution,” said Rep. Ed Case (D-HI).
Some Democrats even view their votes to help Johnson pass big-ticket bills as a central element of their party’s identity— proof that they, more than Republicans, want to help government function. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-MA) said she believed what’s happening in the Capitol is noticed by voters back home.
“The fact that we are needed and we’ll continue to be the adults in the room to keep the focus on the American people, that’s the work we’re sent here to do and we’ll continue to do it,” Clark said.
With a final vote on the spending accord expected to bump right up against the shutdown deadline of midnight Saturday, though, some Democratic lawmakers were eager to focus on flipping the House this fall to make sure the current climate doesn’t repeat itself.
“It’s very frustrating, because people expect us to be the grown-ups in the room. But what really needs to happen is, we need to actually control the House,” said Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA).
