Mike Johnson Sets Up Vote To Avoid Government Shutdown

WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has set up a high-stakes vote Tuesday afternoon on a bill to head off a partial government shutdown Friday night.

Vice President JD Vance pitched the bill to Republicans in a morning meeting by saying it would empower Donald Trump’s administration to continue slashing federal agencies as Elon Musk has been doing through the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“This is how the president has asked us to fight now so that they can do what they’re doing with DOGE,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) told reporters after the meeting.

Davidson is one of several conservative Republicans who sometimes threatens to vote against spending bills, especially “continuing resolutions” like the one the House will vote on later Tuesday. Trump has urged Republicans to back the bill and already called out a lawmaker who pledged a “no” vote, saying he should face a Republican primary challenger.

Republicans have cheered the DOGE efforts to fire federal workers and shutter entire bureaucracies within the federal government even as it represents a clear affront to their own power as stewards of federal spending under the Constitution.

Johnson told reporters he expects the Trump administration not to spend some of the money they are directing it to spend.

“Some of the things that are being appropriated, the executive branch has the authority not to spend,” Johnson said. “We just do a top-line basic authorization and the president always has a lot of discretion through his administration, through his Cabinet secretaries, to determine how it’s spent.”

The DOGE efforts have been the subject of several lawsuits accusing the administration of overstepping its constitutional authority. A federal judge last month said the administration had acted illegally in firing probationary federal workers, for instance.

Johnson and other Republicans said they expect the Trump administration to follow a statutory process for getting Congress to bless its “impoundment” of federal funds by sending a “rescission” message to set up a vote in the House and Senate.

“It would be right for them to send a rescission package to Congress, for us to unwind that. We expect that that will be part of this process,” Johnson said.

Republican lawmakers negotiated for weeks with Democrats who wanted the continuing resolution to include language forbidding the Trump administration from unilaterally trying to shutter federal agencies and programs. Republicans balked at the request, and top Democrats have pushed their colleagues to vote against the measure.

“The House Republican so-called spending bill does nothing to protect Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.) said Monday.

The bill would trim nondefense spending by $13 billion (out of $1.7 trillion overall) and would block the D.C. city government from spending a portion of its own funds. City leaders said the change would potentially force layoffs of teachers and police officers.

Because Republicans have a small majority in the House, if all Democrats oppose the funding plan, with full attendance, Johnson can lose only one Republican and still pass the bill. Senate Democrats would then have a chance to block the measure, though they have not said they would do so.