Mike Johnson's handshake deal to avert government shutdown sparks conservative outrage

WASHINGTON – House Speaker Mike Johnson's handshake deal to fund the government has sparked outrage from what was already an irate right flank in the House Republican conference. The anger comes as the clock ticks for Congress to avert a partial government shutdown in less than 10 days.

The House’s most conservative members, who at first championed Johnson’s ascension to the speakership last year as a significant victory for the hard right, have expressed a variety of negative reactions to Johnson’s agreement to fund the government ranging from disappointment to outright anger.

One lawmaker, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, a member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, declined to rule out ousting Johnson from the speakership over the deal. Roy said he was leaving a motion to vacate “on the table” Tuesday on the Steve Deace Show, a conservative talk show.

Others didn’t want to say whether they would support a motion to vacate, but still expressed their disappointment at the agreement, saying it lacks the deep spending cuts conservatives have long sought after.

“He would have never got the job doing the things that he’s doing right now. No way. No one would have got the job doing this,” Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, told USA TODAY, adding the deal was “certainly not the plan that was communicated” prior to Johnson’s election as speaker.

Over the weekend, Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., came to an agreement for federal spending caps for the next fiscal year at $1.59 trillion along with a $69 billion side deal for non-defense spending.

The deal largely resembles the agreement former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., made last year with President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for coveted Republican spending cuts. That deal was in part what led to McCarthy’s ouster.

Soon after Johnson became speaker however, conservatives indicated they were willing to accept the spending caps agreed to in the debt ceiling deal. The House Freedom Caucus released an official position last year opposing any “gimmicks” along with the $1.59 trillion. The side deal cut along with the topline spending deal, is that very gimmick conservatives warned against.

“It’s even worse than we thought,” the House Freedom Caucus said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “This is total failure.”

In a letter to House Republicans, Johnson said the agreement would “not satisfy everyone,” but allows Congress to fund the government and offer a path for Republicans to fight for conservative policy additions to funding bills.

As to what Republicans were able to secure, Johnson touted accelerating $10 billion in cuts to the Internal Revenue Service to 2024 that were originally scheduled to take effect in 2025 and also clawing back roughly $6 billion in unspent COVID-era relief funding.

But at the end of the day, those cuts weren’t enough or new for hard-right lawmakers in the lower chamber.

Shortly after Johnson’s election as speaker, conservatives largely celebrated his rise to the top job considering he had a considerably more conservative voting record compared to his predecessors. The agreement, which changes little compared to the deal McCarthy struck with Biden, comes off as a betrayal to those members.

“I’d say to them that I am a conservative and this is not what we all want. It’s not the best deal that we could get if we were in charge of both chambers and the White House, but it’s the best deal that we could broker out of the circumstances,” Johnson said on Tuesday afternoon, when asked about his response to the conservative fury the deal sparked.

The path forward Johnson said, will be pursuing conservative policy riders to add on to funding bills but even so, with a razor-thin majority in the House and Democrats controlling the Senate and the White House, it’s unlikely Republicans can get much out of negotiations.

“I don’t have a lot of confidence that we have a lot of leverage being in the minority of the three legged legislative stool,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said. “It’s going to be a challenge to winning anything in a government shutdown.”

Chair of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Bob Good, R-Va., conceded as well that it is unlikely the GOP will secure victories in future funding legislation, lamenting that “past history would not indicate that we are willing to fight for good policy or reduced spending.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: House conservatives outraged at Johnson over government funding deal