Johnson may be in peril as conservative backlash to spending deal grows amid record deficit, debt

While the U.S. Treasury Department reports a $1.8 trillion deficit for fiscal year 2023, House Speaker Mike Johnson's speakership might be in peril as conservative backlash to his spending deal with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer grows louder.

According to the Treasury Department, the federal government has already run a $510 billion deficit in the first three months of fiscal year 2024.

Johnson hasn't ruled out moving forward with a short-term spending bill in place of his agreement with Schumer but House conservatives don't support that move either.

The tentative deal sets a top line for domestic and military spending through September 2024 at $1.6 trillion, which is within the perimeters of the Financial Responsibility Act of 2023 (FRA). The total breaks down to $886 billion defense spending and $773 billion for non-defense domestic spending. Defense spending has been rising year after year. In fiscal year 2023, the defense budget was about $853 billion.

The FRA is legislation that passed after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden struck a spending deal that raised the nation's debt ceiling.  

The non-defense spending side also includes $69 billion in "adjustments," which conservatives have described as a side-deal. This package does not include the supplemental foreign aid package under consideration for Ukraine, Israel, and Palestinian refugees. Republicans are pushing for additional U.S. border security funding to be included in any foreign aid package that Congress passes.

Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., expressed doubt that significant spending cuts will happen in this current session of Congress.

"I'm pretty sure that we're not going to get major spending reductions when you've got a Democratic Senate and the Democratic White House. I'm also pretty sure that when the stars align, the way they have, that you can get border security. That was a great opportunity for us to get wasted because of some hardliners," Scott told Just the News on Thursday.

"We have a select few, like the group yesterday, that just pops up and says, 'Well, I disagree with 10% of it so I'm going to vote no.' And when that happens, you give the Democrats total control," he added, referring to a group of conservatives voting to stop House floor action yesterday during a procedural vote.

House and Senate conservatives have spoken out against the Johnson and Schumer spending deal, arguing that it doesn't do enough to reduce the deficit, which was confirmed on Thursday to be $1.8 trillion in 2023. The total national debt recently surpassed $34 trillion.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said on Tuesday that Congress would likely need to pass a stop-gap continuing resolution (CR) to keep the government funded while spending negotiations continue. However, Johnson said last year that he wouldn't support passing any more CRs. Johnson did not rule out passing another CR when asked about the issue on Wednesday. He said that Congress would ultimately avoid a government shutdown.

McCarthy made a similar deal that led to his ousting from the speakership last year. He put a 45-day CR on the House floor to avoid a government shutdown back in September 2023, which passed with Democrat and Republican votes. Conservatives did not support that CR and argued that the House should have passed single-subject separate appropriations bills. To date, the House has passed 8 of 12 appropriations bills.

In total, 8 House conservatives and all House Democrats voted in favor of a motion to vacate the chair, which led to McCarthy's removal in October.

In November, Johnson supported the passage of a two-step "laddered" continuing resolution two expiration dates of January 19 and February 2. At the time, this approach was criticized by the conservative House Freedom Caucus but Johnson had only been speaker for a short time, so no GOP members tried removing him from his post.

Now, conservatives like Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, aren't ruling out an effort to remove Johnson.

"We’ll see what happens," Roy said Monday on CNN.

Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., elaborated on conservatives' disappointment in some of Johnson's decisions as speaker on Thursday 

"I think that we wanted to definitely give Speaker Johnson, you know, time to get his feet underneath and get his team situated. And, you know, kind of figure things out. But I would definitely say that there is some disappointment with some of the decisions that we've seen him make," Crane said.

"Some of us are trying to encourage Speaker Johnson to, you know, to take some of the hard lines that we believe that this country needs. And so I'm hoping that he's going to be willing to do that," he added.

Crane said no one can make Johnson do anything he doesn't want to do in the end.

"I do believe that Speaker Johnson is a man of integrity and if he tells you he's going to do something, he's going to do it. And if he's going to disappoint you and go a different direction, he'll tell you that too. And so, even that right there to me is an improvement over the last situation," he said.

"I'm going to actually head to a meeting with the speaker and I'm going to continue to push that we cut federal spending significantly, and that we get our border secured. And if that means that we have to shut down the government, I'm okay with that," he added.

Crane, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, elaborated on his positions with regard to a potential government shutdown taking place.

"It might sound like I take that lightly when I say it that way. But that's not what I mean. I mean, that I know that we're in such a hole that there is no way out of it that's not uncomfortable," he said, referring to the $34 trillion national debt.

"People are going to have to sacrifice. There's going to have to be some uncomfortable moments. And I came up here because I want to be a part of saving this country for my kids and the next generations. So I'm willing to deal with those uncomfortable situations," he also said.

Crane emphasized that he's willing to be called names and do "whatever it's going to take to put this country back on the right path."

Crane also said he would "hold the hard line and tell Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden, 'no, we're not doing that anymore' and if you want to shut down the country because you're not willing to shut our border down, we'll engage in that PR fight with you all day long. And I think we'll win that because  I've seen the polling from the American people. I've seen the disgust from the American people."