US House Speaker McCarthy struggles to pass temporary spending bill to avoid shutdown as others look at options

Despite the lack of a defined approach, certain support, and limited time, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy promised Wednesday that he would not give up attempting to persuade his colleagues to adopt a temporary funding package to avoid a federal government shutdown.

However, parliamentarians who are watching and waiting for the ailing leader to deliver are considering alternative possibilities.

The Republican speaker met behind closed doors with his Republican colleagues for another day of arduous bargaining, publicly arguing that he still had time to win over hard-line conservatives but privately running out of options to keep the government funded before money runs out before the end of the month.

“It’s not September 30 — the game is not over,” McCarthy told reporters as he arrived at the Capitol.

But after a more than two-hour evening meeting he had only inched closer to a resolution.

“We’re very close there,” McCarthy said. “I feel like I just got a little more movement to go there.”

Even if McCarthy is able to do the seemingly impossible and rally his all-but-uncontrollable House Republican majority behind a conservative spending proposal, his victory would be fleeting. The hard-right measure, which reduces several programmes by 8%, would be rejected by the Senate, where Democrats are in power, but even Republicans oppose the House GOP’s drastic cutbacks.

Across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., attempted to jumpstart the process by introducing his own bipartisan funding legislation, but Republicans blocked him.

A Senate test vote on a popular bipartisan package of defence and military spending legislation was postponed due to Republican senators’ resistance, as some are joining House Republicans in lobbying for deeper cuts.

“It’s yet another reminder that in both houses, a small group of hard-right Republicans are dead set to grind the gears of government to a halt,” Schumer said.

McCarthy has suffered a series of setbacks this week to his plan to advance Republicans’ spending plans, testing his grip on power amid calls for his ouster.

In defiance of the speaker, a group of five GOP lawmakers from the right-wing House Freedom Caucus joined with Democrats to prevent consideration Tuesday of a usually popular defense bill. The bill would provide pay raises for the troops and other measures, but Republicans want a broader discussion on spending cuts in non-defense-related budgets.

McCarthy set up a do-over vote for Thursday as he tries for a third time to advance the defense bill after winning over two of the hard-right Republicans who were holding out for a commitment from the speaker on spending cuts elsewhere.

The House floor is essentially at a standstill, with no business related to the looming government shutdown being conducted, as McCarthy tries to regroup. He has warned lawmakers that they will stay in session this weekend to finish the job.

The speaker had hoped to rally Republicans around a stopgap bill, called a continuing resolution, or CR, that would fund the government for the next month as talks continue. The temporary bill would accomplish some of the conservatives’ goals — by slashing many government services 8%, while sparing defense and veterans accounts.

The package McCarthy is trying to push through the House also proposes a long list of conservative policies for immigration and border security that are widely embraced by Republicans.

But the conservative holdouts also want McCarthy to commit to keeping the funding cuts in place longer, for the full year, as budget talks continue with the Senate.

During the lengthy dinnertime meeting in the Capitol basement, McCarthy offered to meet the conservative holdouts partway, vowing he would fight for a lower overall spending level in the subsequent bills.

But that still wasn’t enough for some. One key conservative, Rep. Matt Gaetz of Florida, stood up and warned the room that at least seven Republicans would oppose the continuing resolution, according to those familiar with the private meeting. That’s enough to deny passage.

Among others still opposed to the stopgap measure, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said afterward she too would vote against it.

Commanding only a slim House majority, McCarthy needs almost every Republican on board to pass any conservative bills over the objections of Democrats.

“It’s a tough job and keeping all of these members appeased is next to impossible,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark.

About McCarthy, he said, “He’s doing the best he can, but we have to give him a hand to play.”

As the Republican lawmakers were fighting among themselves for another day in the Capitol, others reached across the aisle to Democrats to try come up with a bipartisan solution.

Two centrist groups, the New Democratic Coalition and the Republican Governance Group, are having their own conversations on how to solve this impasse, according to a person familiar with the talks who insisted on anonymity to discuss them. Their groups together make up 145 members.

Rep. Annie Kuster, D-N.H., who chairs the New Democratic Coalition, said on Tuesday she was hoping that a coalition of “roughly an equal number” of Republicans and Democrats would emerge to support a continuing resolution.

“These are the people that are making public statements that a shutdown is not good for the country,” she said.

And members of the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus of Republicans and Democrats are also in talks to develop a framework that would fund the government for several months, into 2024, while budget talks continue, according to a person familiar with the private negotiations and granted anonymity to discuss them.

Also at stake is President Joe Biden’s request to provide an additional $24 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine in its war with Russia which some lawmakers want to add to the must-pass bills needed to fund the U.S. government.

Meanwhile, in the Senate, a robust bipartisan group of senators had been trying to show strength as they prepared to negotiate with the House on government funding. But the Senate’s effort to advance the bill fell short again Wednesday as Republicans dug in for a fight.

It’s not the only Senate fight as senators are reeling from Schumer’s decision to do away with the chamber’s stuffy dress code, in a nod to Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, who has preferred wearing casual clothes while working to recover from a stroke and depression.

Fetterman on Wednesday upped the ante: “If those jagoffs in the House stop trying to shut our government down, and fully support Ukraine, then I will save democracy by wearing a suit on the Senate floor next week,” he said in a statement.