An omnibus spending bill is becoming more and more likely as the House of Representatives finds itself in its third consecutive week without a Speaker, with September’s stopgap funding bill set to expire on November 17, according to House Republicans.
Last week, 25 “Republican” members voted against Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) on the floor in his bid to become Speaker before his candidacy for the job was officially derailed in a closed-door vote in the basement of the Capitol. As time creeps on without a Republican Speaker to lead the charge, the possibility of a trillion-dollar omnibus bill becomes more likely.
WATCH — McCaul: GOP Speaker Search “Embarrassing” and “Dangerous”:
Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN) emphasized in a statement to Breitbart News the need to elect a true conservative Speaker at the risk of losing the spending battle to Democrats.
“I supported Jim Jordan for Speaker because he’s not afraid of a fight, and we’re going to need to fight to cut spending,” Banks said. “House Republicans must elect a conservative Speaker this week or Joe Biden and the Democrats will continue to add trillions to our debt.”
Currently, the national debt sits at $33.6 trillion, per the Department of the United States Treasury.
In a statement to Breitbart News, Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), who has been a staunch critic of reckless spending and voted against raising the debt ceiling earlier this year and against the stopgap funding bill, predicted that an omnibus bill would inevitably come.
“I’ve been sounding the alarm bell on spending before the monstrous omnibus passed out of the 117th Congress at the end of last year,” Hunt said.
“I don’t believe the delay in choosing our next Speaker will have any effect on whether another CR or omnibus comes to the floor, because I believe one is coming to the floor regardless of a fight over the gavel,” and despite the demands among many in the GOP conference for individual appropriations bills, he stated.
“It’s because this is the way Washington functions now,” Hunt said. “One single up or down vote on funding the entire government and every pet project that comes along with it. It’s why we are staring down $34 trillion in debt with no remedy in sight.
“So yes, I believe another CR or omnibus will come to the floor by the end of the year and will pass with the support of Democrats and liberal Republicans,” he forecasted. “To break this cycle of spending we need individual bills on the floor and a real debate over our spending addiction. Unfortunately, the appetite for this is not big enough yet among most members of Congress.”
The stopgap bill passed in September aimed to buy Speaker Emeritus Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and House Republicans more time to pass the remaining separate appropriations bills to avert another omnibus. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) moved on a motion to vacate the chair after the passage of the continuing resolution, which led to McCarthy’s ousting. Gaetz accused McCarthy of cutting a deal with Democrats to pass Ukraine aid at a later time instead of tying it to September’s continuing resolution, as the Washington Examiner noted.
Since then, speakership bids from Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Jordan have both failed as the GOP conference looks increasingly divided. One GOP aide told Breitbart News that Gaetz and the seven Republicans who stood with him have a hand in “destroying the appropriations process.”
“By siding with every House Democrat to remove a Republican speaker, Rep. Matt Gaetz and a small minority of House Republicans have destroyed the appropriations process, giving Democrats leverage to jam through spending bills that protect President Biden’s policies when government funding expires in just 25 days,” said the aide, speaking on the condition of anonymity.
“Instead of passing conservative appropriations bills, the House has essentially surrendered control of the chamber to the Democrats by losing the ability to vote on a single bill for three weeks because of the chaos caused by the reckless actions of eight Republicans,” they added.
McCarthy opted not to seek the speakership again and went to bat for Jordan in his third and final unsuccessful floor vote.
After Jordan lost that vote, McCarthy said to CNN’s Manu Raju that House Republicans were in a “very bad place right now,” and cast blame on the “crazy eight members led by Gaetz.”
Watch video here:
Kevin McCarthy on Jordan Losing Third Speaker Bid: “We’re in a Very Bad Place”:
As the Hill noted, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) on Thursday said that “this struggle for Speaker, this is about whether you’re voting for an omnibus or 12 separate bills.”
If Jordan had been elected, Massie said that it would have given Republicans in the House “enough runway to get 12 bills out without a gun to our head, and then give [the] Senate plenty of time to respond to those 12 bills,” according to the Hill’s Aris Folley.
Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC), who also supported Jordan, told the Hill he fears Congress is on the course to an omnibus bill.
“I think we are, and that’s awful,” he said. “All an omnibus does is puts a lump sum of money, that the taxpayers have no idea where it’s going.”
Over the weekend, seven GOP members announced they were launching candidacies for the Speaker’s gavel. They include Reps. Jack Bergman (R-MI), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Kevin Hern (R-OK), Mike Johnson (R-LA), Austin Scott (R-GA), and Pete Sessions (R-TX), as Breitbart News Capitol Hill Correspondent Bradley Jaye reported.
