House PASSES short-term funding extension to narrowly avoid government shutdown on Friday

The House passed a fourth short-term spending bill to punt government funding deadlines for fiscal year 2024 further down the road, narrowly avoiding a government shutdown that would have been triggered on Friday. 

The final vote tally was 320-99. Two Democrats voted against it, as did 97 Republicans. 

With new funding deadlines set for March 8 and March 22, the plan is now to pass six appropriations bills to fund each agency of government next week and six the following week.

Next week's six appropriations bills will likely be lumped together in a package known as a 'mini-bus,' where all of them come up for just one up-or-down vote. 

The rest of the appropriations are expected to be lumped together into one to two mini-bus votes. 

The House passed its third stopgap short-term funding bill 

Oftentimes in past years Congress has passed funding for all 12 agencies of government in one package, known as an omnibus.

House Republicans have long had a goal of passing twelve separate bills on individual votes but now seemingly accept the improbability of that. 

Still, Johnson celebrated dividing spending legislation into two to three votes as a win. 

'We're trying to turn the aircraft carrier back to real budgeting and spending reform. This was an important thing to break it up into smaller pieces,' Johnson said. 

The text of the spending bills is expected to be released over the weekend to give lawmakers 72 hours to look over it and decide how to vote on the spending bills. 

Congress is now cutting into its time to pass a spending plan for fiscal year 2025, which begins in October.  

The CR vote closes out a less than 24-hour work week in Washington for the House, which got back from a two-week recess only on Wednesday evening. 

Right-wing Republicans seemed dejected about yet another continuing resolution, or CR, the fourth of this Congress and third under Johnson. 

'I am bringing back the nickname for the House of Representatives to be the House of hypocrites,' Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told reporters. 

'We have our Republicans, who remember the big fight earlier this year about no CRs and rules, and no omnibuses and no mini-buses? Well, everything talked about in conference this morning was a CR, a week-long, another CR, conservative members of Congress standing up wanting a one year CR.' 

The House Freedom Caucus had advocated for a year-long CR because on April 30 across-the-board one percent spending cuts kick in. 

But Johnson on Thursday morning told them that plan does not have wide support across the Republican conference. 

'It's a failure,' Greene said of the new spending plan. 'We're doing everything we said we wouldn't do.'  

'I am bringing back the nickname for the House of Representatives to be the House of hypocrites,' Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., told reporters

Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, predicted this would 'probably not' be the last time they pushed funding deadlines to later in the year and continued funding at levels set for 2023 under House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. 

'The voters that I spoke to for the last eight days in Texas during early voting are very disgusted with what we're doing in Congress,' Nehls told DailyMail.com. 

'I believe right now, if you ask me to put a bet in Vegas right now, I believe we lose the House because of the way we have managed this House.' 

'Watching House Republicans is like watching football whose best play is the punt,' said Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., on the House floor.  'We punt yet again on needed spending cuts.' 

Gaetz ousted former Speaker Kevin McCarthy over his decision to put a CR on the floor months ago, arguing McCarthy hadn't kept his word to pass 12 separate appropriations bills. 

'Here we are again, kicking the can down the road,' said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who supports a full-year CR with one percent cuts. 'We're going to continue to spend money at the Nancy Pelosi spending level of an omnibus bill that Republicans roundly opposed.'