Two Weeks To Federal Funding Deadline, Congress Seeks Stopgap Solution

Exactly two weeks until the November 17 deadline to fund the federal government, there’s bipartisan agreement in Congress that another stopgap funding measure will be needed to avoid a shutdown, but there is no agreement yet as to the specifics of such a measure.

New Speaker Mike Johnson had been talking about doing just a simple continuing resolution (CR) into mid-January, but then surprised many at the Capitol Thursday when he mentioned that some in the Republican conference had another idea that he was considering.

"One idea that was pitched this morning, to be very frank with you," Rep. Johnson (R-LA) told reporters, "is a laddered CR. I'll unpack for you what that means here in the coming days, but potentially that you would do a CR that extends individual pieces of the appropriations process. Individual bills."

Speaker Johnson has yet to further 'unpack' the meaning of a laddered CR and does not seem to have decided if that is the approach he will take, but his conservative approach to fiscal matters, generally, is very popular on the right.

"I’m grateful that we have a Speaker, who is truly concerned about our deficit and debt spending," Rep. Josh Brecheen (R-OK2) said in an interview Thursday.

But leading Democrats see Johnson's talk of a laddered CR as just a novel disguise for devastating and unacceptable cuts.

"Translation: they want to shut the government down," said Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at his weekly news conference Friday morning.

Rep. Jeffries says the GOP had its month of partisan infighting and brinksmanship. The way forward, he says, must be bipartisan.

"It was my hope that under new management, there would be a different approach," Jeffries (D-NY) continued, "and that remains to be seen."

Oklahoma's Frank Lucas is optimistic: "I don’t believe we’ll have a government shutdown," he said in an interview Friday.

Congressman Lucas is also realistic and says he realizes that governing, especially with the GOP's current razor-thin majority, takes hard work and cooperation. He says both of those have been in short supply for the last couple of months.

"Instead of squabbling," Lucas noted, "we should’ve been doing our work -- I was one of those people who advocated doing our work!"

Lucas is confident that the squabbling is now over, and the focus is again on doing the hard work on issues that truly impact constituents.