Johnson passes bill to avert shutdown, but...

Tuesday was supposed to be a good day for Speaker Johnson (R-LA), but his joy was short-lived.  

After passing a bill to avert the government shutdown, the bill was blocked in the Senate, which created yet another challenge for President Trump.  

It Passed 

We all knew this was going to be a hard fight, and I am not just talking about Democrat resistance.  

There are GOP members of Congress who believe we need to significantly reduce government spending, and I happen to agree.  

To that point, there were whispers among the GOP that the short-term spending bill would be blocked, but when the vote took place, everyone fell in line and the legislation passed through the House.  

Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) explained, “I think for a lot of people back home, they’re wondering, why isn’t this just the same thing that Congress always does? This is how the president has asked us to fight now, so that they can do what they’re doing with DOGE.” 

No Democrat Support 

Democrats have no plans to help the GOP at this point, and that started with 212 members of the Democrat caucus voting to shut down the government, and that is the exact narrative that the GOP needs to push.  

Dems are complaining that the GOP is going to cut Medicaid and Social Security, but there is nothing in the bill to suggest that. Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) explained, “There’s nothing in this bill about Social Security — not a single thing, We’ve heard a lot about Medicare. We don’t deal with Medicare on the Appropriations Committee. It’s not in here. We’ve heard a lot about Medicaid. It’s not in here either.” 

Speaker Johnson added, “If our Democrat colleagues want to increase their 21% approval rating with the American public they ought to start by doing the right thing and keeping the government open.” He later added, “The Democrats are responsible for the mess we’re in because they added these completely undeliverable positions to the negotiations. They wanted us to tie the hands of the administration.” 

The fact Democrats were trying to block this legislation in the House meant for sure there were not going to be enough votes to break the Senate filibuster. If every Republican voted to pass the measure, they would still need seven Dems to cross the aisle.  

Blocked in the Senate 

Needless to say, that did not happen, as Senate Minority Leader Schumer (D-N.Y.) led the charge to block the legislation and defeat the House bill in the Senate. 

Schumer stated, “Funding the government should be a bipartisan effort, but Republicans chose a partisan path, drafting their [continuing resolution] without any input — any input — from congressional Democrats,” which is pretty funny when you consider that when Biden was in office, the GOP had virtually no input into budget legislation.  

He continued, “Because of that, Republicans do not have the votes in the Senate to invoke cloture on the House CR. Our caucus is unified on a clean [CR through April 11] that will keep the government open and give Congress time to negotiate bipartisan legislation that can pass.” 

In addition to the Democrat resistance, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) is against the measure, so now the GOP needs eight votes in order to get this bill passed, and that is going to happen. This is all strategy by the Democrats, who are dying to hang a government shutdown on Trump.