Current funding levels partially expire on Jan. 19 with another round of funding to expire on Feb. 2. House Speaker Mike Johnson favors a deal that provides more concessions than Republicans agreed to last summer.
The New York Times reports the plan would allow for $69 billion in non-defense spending, but Republicans would get $10 billion in agreed-upon IRS cuts to take effect sooner and would be able to reclaim $6 billion in unspent COVID relief money.
Johnson shared news of the agreement in a letter to House members earlier this week, and the more conservative members were not happy. They expressed themselves Wednesday when 15 of them voted against a procedural motion on the House floor. That in effect brought all business to a halt, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) said on American Family Radio Thursday.
House Republicans have sought to make border security a part of any spending bill, and James Lankford (R-Oklahoma) has been trying to make that happen from the Democrat-controlled Senate.
"James Lankford, a godly man, is working his tail off to do everything he can to try and help us secure the border. When Republicans talk about this, we talk about this as a national security issue. When my friends across the aisle talk about this, they talk about this as an immigration issue, but I can assure you 10,000 people crossing our border every day is the number-one immediate threat to our national security," Marshall explained on Washington Watch Thursday.
Point of contention: The parole issue
The point of contention between Lankford and Senate Democrats is the point of parole, Marshall told show host Tony Perkins. When illegals cross the border and simply say "asylum," most are sent on their way inside the country.
"Joe Biden has paroled over 1.5 million illegal migrants that have crossed our border …. 1.5 million," Marshall emphasized.
"When people cross the border, they can ask for asylum; there are a whole lot of things they can do, but Joe Biden is saying Don't worry about it. Here's a work VISA, here's a phone. You don't have to even show up for a court date or do anything at all. You are paroled indefinitely for all practical purposes.
"What the law clearly states is he's supposed to do that on a case-by-case basis. He's doing that thousands of people at a time," the Kansas Republican stated.
That fact – the parole for illegals – is the number-one reason to impeach Homeland Security Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas, according to Marshall.
"That's why we should impeach Sec. Mayorkas now, and that's why in 300 days we should fire Joe Biden. Even today, President Biden and the Democrats refuse to quantify how much parole we should be using in the future. We think it should be down in the tens of thousands per year, not this 1.5 million people like his last three years," Marshall said.
"I'll predict what will happen is the Democrats will walk away. They're going to try to make it look like we walked away from the deal, but they're going to walk away from this deal over the parole issue. That's the last issue that we have," he said.
Johnson has told Republicans this path forward is the best that can be achieved given the slim majority held by the GOP and the difficulty that exists in the party enforcing its will. But Massie believes there's a better way. The Kentucky Republican told AFR show host Jenna Ellis Thursday that Biden and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer are trying to renege on a deal that was signed into law in the summer of 2023.
"The best deal we could make was the deal we made this summer, the Fiscal Responsibility Act – and in exchange for raising the debt limit, we got Joe Biden and Chuck Schumer to sign into law a bill which capped spending at below Nancy Pelosi's levels last year.
"We also got in that bill a provision, some call it the Massie Plan, because I insisted on a provision that said if we just keep doing CRs on spending bills – the cut, copy, paste [routine] – that there will be an automatic 1% cut," Massie said.
Dems surprise with McCarthy agreement
Massie told Ellis that Biden and Schumer contend they had a side deal with then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy that called for this additional non-defense spending.
"The problem with that is McCarthy's no longer the Speaker, I'm sorry. If you think you had a wink and a nod to spend more money than what we agreed to when we raised the debt limit, that deal is off when that Speaker leaves," Massie said.
With more division within the GOP, there were murmurings of discontent with Johnson and memories of last fall's chaos when Matt Gaetz, of Florida, moved to vacate the chair. Soon thereafter, McCarthy was gone … and the process leading to Johnson's election was slow and painful.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), one of eight Republicans who joined Democrats in ousting McCarthy, told The Steve Deace Show that a motion to vacate against Johnson is not "off the table."
"I think the Speaker [Johnson] needs to know that we're angry about this. He needs to know that we need to sit down at the table and try to solve this," Roy said.
Massie's suggestion? "If we go for higher levels of spending, I would call that a bait and switch – not on Mike Johnson's part, but on Schumer's and Biden's part. Mike Johnson has got to reject it and tell them, 'No, we're going with what's in law,' not with what you see was some kind of secret deal," Massie said.
Massie said the current agreement is acceptable only if Johnson can secure meaningful policy concessions, such as border security, that are not currently in place.
"I'm not blaming Mike Johnson, but we've got to tell Schumer and Biden, 'No, you guys made a deal, we're not breaking the deal.' If Mike Johnson could get some really great policy change that America needs – for instance, enforcing our border – that might be worth opening the deal back up from this summer that was signed into law. But that's not what's on the table," he noted.
Massie: Conservatives need to be clear with intentions
It's no easy task, and conservative Republicans have an important role to play here too. They have to put their cards on the table and tell Johnson exactly what they will support, Massie said.
"[Here's] what conservatives owe to Mike Johnson now: if you're going to object to his negotiations with Schumer and Biden, you have to tell [him] what you will vote for. We have a majority [of] only a couple of votes; so if somebody is out sick, we've got a majority of one. If three people have a burr in their saddle and say [they're] not going to vote for a Continuing Resolution that automatically cuts the government one percent, then we don't have a deal on our side and can't even get them to hold to existing law."
