Commentary: Big Tent Ideas

PAUL TELLER: Republicans Shouldn’t Shy Away From A Spending Fight

House Speaker Mike Johnson talks to reporters on Sept. 25, 2024, after the House passed a CR to keep the government funded to Dec. 20, 2024. (Screen Capture/CSPAN)

Year after year, administration after administration, Congress continues to pass last-minute spending bills without amendment, without cutting spending and without addressing our unsustainable federal debt.

They continue to extend liberal priorities without a second thought, while conservative policy provisions are left out year after year.

Despite a Republican majority in the House and very narrow Democrat control of the Senate, the current Congress has once again chosen this well-trodden path and set up Dec. 20th as the day by which to pass the annual Christmas spending bill. This Christmas chokepoint will likely be used to force an earmarks-laden omnibus appropriations bill (or equivalent) that increases spending and carries on it other big-spending items, like a food-welfare extension, a PAYGO waiver and a debt-ceiling increase.

It is noteworthy that House Speaker Mike Johnson and the entire House Leadership team adopted and sincerely advocated the appropriations plan developed by House conservatives and the Conservative Movement: a six-month CR to avoid a Christmas chokepoint, with the SAVE Act attached to prohibit the voter registration of non-citizens.

The Leadership efforts are commendable. The conservative world made a very reasonable ask, and leadership not only listened but made a real push to pass the conservative plan. They deserve thanks from conservatives.

Sadly, not all House Republicans got on board. Of course, the CR-plus-SAVE-Act plan was not perfect. Far from it, since it would have fully funded the Biden-Harris agenda for six months.

But we at Advancing American Freedom felt that the larger strategy of eliminating the Christmas chokepoint and allowing a hopefully-more-conservative Washington, D.C., next year to implement better appropriations solutions — while making it even harder for non-citizens to vote — was worth swallowing an imperfect bill. It is a shame that 21 House Republicans voted no, answered “present,” or didn’t vote at all. Some of the not-voting Members left town to attend a Trump-Vance rally rather than vote on legislation with hundreds of billions of dollars in spending.

Clearly, the congressional appropriations process is broken, as it has been for at least two decades, where the options are most commonly take-it-or-leave-it, as a government shutdown looms large. As most political observers might predict, Congress will likely do little work on appropriations between now and December.

The excuse in October and early November will be election campaigning, and the excuses for the rest of November will be leadership elections, new Member orientation, fun receptions and, of course, the one-day Thanksgiving holiday stretched into a ten-day vacation.

Then December will suddenly be upon Congress, when Members and staff will likely throw up their hands and claim that there is no time left for anything except an omnibus, so they can “clear the decks” for whomever the next president and congressional leaders will be.

This pattern, while predictable, is not unavoidable. Congress should do all it can now to avoid pushing up against the foolish Dec. 20th deadline. Congress is currently scheduled to be in session for five legislative weeks between now and the appropriations deadline, with brainstorming and negotiations very possible outside of the in-session days and weeks.

Plus, Congress could put additional in-session hours, days and weeks onto the calendar now in order to maximize the chances of enacting appropriations bills far in advance of the Christmas chokepoint of Dec. 20th.

Of course, the goal should not just be to enact appropriations bills that are the exact same as a problematic omnibus bill broken up into smaller parts.

Rather, the goal should be to fight for and earn conservative wins for the American people — whether non-security spending cuts, elimination of big-government socialist programs, or language that implements policies that are wildly popular across the ideological spectrum (like voter ID, parental control of education, and no males in female sports).

We and the larger Conservative Movement stand ready now to help avoid the usual December disaster for the federal budget and for the future of America.

Paul Teller is the Executive Vice President of Advancing American Freedom, the issue advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence.

The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.

(Featured Image Media Credit: Screen Capture/CSPAN)