“In DOGE we trust,” stated Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., a longtime deficit hawk who was amongst these voting sure.
The result’s a newly emboldened Home GOP majority that, for the primary time in years, is ready to seize and make the most of the huge energy of sticking collectively, fairly than disassembling into chaotic rounds of public infighting.
And it’s leaving the Democrats, within the minority within the Home and Senate, shifting quickly to reply.
The story the Democrats have leveraged to their benefit for years — that Republicans merely can’t govern — might now not be as true because it as soon as was.
In actual fact, the Republicans who management Congress and the White Home are governing at lightning velocity — over the dismantling of the very authorities itself.
As if on cue, because the Home was appearing Tuesday, the Division of Training axed some 1,300 staff, about half its workers, on its option to unwinding the company.
“The DOGE efforts and the other things that are happening in the administration are very important for the American people,” Johnson stated in a victory lap, “because ultimately what we’re going to be able to do is downsize the size and scope of the federal government.”
The invoice now heads to the Senate, the place Republicans have a 53-47 majority and Democrats are nearly powerless to cease the head-spinning collection of occasions.
“This is not what the American people want,” Senate Democratic chief Chuck Schumer stated Wednesday.
Schumer faces politically tough choices — both present the Democratic votes wanted to advance the invoice to the 60-vote threshold wanted, or vote to dam it, permitting a federal shutdown after midnight Friday.
After conferring privately with Senate Democrats, Schumer introduced they’d attempt to drive a vote on a shorter, 30-day invoice. That might briefly fund the federal government whereas negotiations proceed. Nevertheless it’s in no way clear Republicans would comply with that, inching nearer to Friday’s shutdown deadline.
Missing leverage to form the funding package deal, the Democrats are left to warn what Trump and Musk will do subsequent.
Trump is pushing the GOP-led Congress to subsequent go what he calls a “big beautiful bill” with some $4.5 trillion in tax cuts and $2 trillion in spending reductions, together with some $880 billion to Medicaid the well being care program utilized by some 80 million Individuals and one other $220 billion to agriculture packages, together with the Supplemental Vitamin Help Program, or meals stamps, to hungry adults and children.
Musk stated that Social Safety and different mainstay “entitlement” packages additionally want drastic cuts.
“The Republican majority just voted to hand a blank check to Elon Musk,” stated Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip.
“No wonder Republicans are canceling their town halls,” she stated. “They know what the American people know: No one voted for this.”
For Republicans, notably within the Home, it’s a brand new day.
On Tuesday nearly each Home Republican — and one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine — backed the federal government funding invoice, which can preserve federal workplaces operating via the tip of the finances yr, in September.
The celebration was additionally unified final month as Johnson led Home Republicans in approving a finances framework for the massive tax-and-spending cuts invoice, setting the method in movement for motion as quickly as April.
Johnson stated the White Home could be sending a rescissions package deal subsequent — legislative shorthand for a proposal to roll again already-approved funding throughout the federal authorities.
Different Republicans are encouraging the Trump administration to impound different federal funds which have been permitted by Congress, however not but spent, organising a possible authorized showdown over the checks and balances of constitutional energy.
For rank-and-file Republicans, the DOGE cuts which can be steamrolling via the federal authorities are past what they may have imagined.
“Exhilarating,” Rep. Richard Hudson of North Carolina, the pinnacle of the Republican marketing campaign committee, instructed The Related Press.
Essentially the most conservative deficit hawks stated they’re prepared to face down on their common antics to dam funding payments, realizing Trump and Musk are wielding the ax on their very own.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, who has routinely voted in opposition to authorities spending payments, stated what’s modified is Trump within the White Home. Rep. Andrew Clyde, R-Ga., who has hardly ever voted for any persevering with decision to fund the federal government, stated the cuts are underway.
So long as DOGE is asking the photographs, “I can support this CR,” stated McClintock, referring the persevering with decision to fund the federal government.
The speaker stated Trump is watching step-by-step. Trump berated the one Republican holdout on the funding package deal, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and was calling others.
Massie, the libertarian leaning MIT graduate who wears a home made debt calculator on his lapel pin, is well-liked amongst his colleagues partly as a result of he’s so constant in his views. He refused to bend.
One other holdout, Rep. Wealthy McCormick, R-Ga., stated although he didn’t personally have a name from Trump, he was on the road when the president known as one other GOP lawmaker.
“I want him to succeed,” McCormick stated.
