House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., told Newsmax on Monday he does not like continuing resolutions, but his two-step plan is the best path forward to avoid a government shutdown on Friday and get the House back to regular order regarding the appropriations process.
"It's not the way the government is supposed to run," Johnson told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren." "When we get to a position where we have to pass a continuing resolution, it means we failed in our job. That's happened for a long time now. We don't have muscle memory on how to actually do the budget and actually enact 12 separate appropriations bills as the statutes require us to do. [It] hasn’t been done in many years here.
"We're trying to break that mold and get back to regular order because that serves the American people well. It's a good stewardship of their precious resources, and it allows for more accountability."
Johnson’s plan, his first major legislative fight since replacing Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., last month, would extend government funding for some agencies and programs until Jan. 19 and continuing funding for others until Feb. 2. Usually, lawmakers extend funding until a certain date for all programs, like Congress did for the current continuing resolution passed Sept. 30 that expires Friday. The bill excludes funding requested by President Joe Biden for Israel, Ukraine, and the U.S. southern border.
"The purpose is to break up the dreaded Christmas omnibus bill that everybody knows is the way this has been done," Johnson said. "Ever since I've been here for the last seven years, all the hard work on appropriations is pushed to the end of the year, and then right before everybody is ready to go home for Christmas, they jam down some trillion-dollar spending monstrosity that's 3,000 pages long, and no one has time to read it.
"That is no way to run a railroad. What we've committed to do is get back to the way it's supposed to be done, and it's like pushing a boulder uphill right now to get people to change that practice."
Johnson can afford to lose only three votes within his party to get his approach passed in the House, provided all Democrats are opposed. The continuing resolution then would face a Democrat-controlled Senate, and a White House that has criticized the approach. Johnson said he has talked to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., about the approach.
"I did have thoughtful conversations with Leader Schumer and with Leader Jeffries and told them the purpose of it," Johnson said. "This is not political partisanship. This is, what we're trying to do is make sure the government stays in operation because we're in a dangerous time. The world is on fire. We cannot afford to not pay our troops and all the other terrible things that happen from a government shutdown.
"The effort is to pragmatically address this issue. And from my conservatives and my party, what I tell them is keep the government open. It allows us to be in a position to really fight for the priorities that we hear so much about … but we won't be able to survive to have those fights if the government is shut down. … I think at the end of the day, they're going to recognize that the two-faced step is good for the process. I think Democrats and Republicans will. I've got a lot of work to do."
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