Infighting within the Republican Party over spending has reached a boiling point as the looming government shutdown draws closer.
House Republicans abruptly canceled legislative work on Thursday, leaving Washington with no progress towards funding the government and no plan to prevent a shutdown next week.
Speaker Mike Johnson, who has only been in the job for two weeks, has yet to reveal his strategy for preventing a lapse in government spending. This task will prove to be difficult as it requires rallying anti-spending Republicans around a stopgap funding bill, which is likely to be rejected by the Democrat-controlled Senate.
House Republicans have been unable to come to a consensus on spending, with the week being wasted on failed attempts to push through two individual spending bills.
This division among House Republicans has made their slim majority ungovernable, leading to the ouster of their previous speaker and causing challenges for their current, more conservative and less experienced leader.
According to Representative Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the chairman of the Rules Committee, the discord within the party is exacerbated by the fact that there are only 220 Republicans in the House, each with their own personalities, interests, and constituencies. This makes it a "risky game" to try and pass bills without Democratic support.
Meanwhile, over in the Senate, Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has taken initial steps to move forward with a stopgap spending measure in case Congress is unable to act in time to avoid a shutdown.
In his address, Schumer called on Speaker Johnson and his House Republican colleagues to learn from past mistakes and to not include hard-line proposals and spending cuts that are not supported by Democrats.
Whether or not Johnson is willing to put forward a stopgap spending bill that Democrats can accept remains to be seen. His predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, faced the same challenge and ultimately could not pass a temporary funding measure even with deep spending cuts and only Republican support.
Representative Chip Roy of Texas, an influential conservative, stated that he would only support a stopgap spending bill if it included deep cuts and conservative policy priorities, which would not survive in the Democratic-led Senate.
On the other hand, Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, who voted to oust McCarthy, expressed his desire to give the new speaker a chance but is hesitant to support a stopgap bill for the first time in his career as a congressman.
The Republican Party's efforts to pass 12 spending bills to fund the government have been hindered by the same obstacles that McCarthy faced. These include deep divisions within the party and opposition to spending cuts and partisan policy riders from more moderate lawmakers.
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On Thursday, a group of moderates opposed a spending bill because it included a provision aimed at undermining a law protecting employees in Washington, D.C., from discrimination for seeking contraception or abortion services. On the other hand, some conservatives opposed the bill for not including an amendment prohibiting federal funds from being used to purchase a new building for the FBI.
These divisions within the Republican Party have only been amplified by their recent defeat in the off-year elections, particularly on the issue of abortion. Representative John Duarte of California, a representative of a district won by President Biden in 2020, stated that the party would have to re-evaluate their approach and pass clean appropriations bills without any "monkey business."
As the week comes to an end and the threat of a government shutdown looms, it remains to be seen if the Republican Party can come together and pass any legislation.
The only question maybe – who will Republican blame?