'This is groundhog day': After Massie objects, GOP pauses on government funding bill

U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie always thought a government funding vote this week was a fairy tale.

It looks like he was right.

Now GOP leaders are scrambling for fairy dust to figure out this tale’s ending.

Speaker Mike Johnson has chosen to delay a vote until next week on Republicans’ plan to fund the federal government for six months after Massie and a growing number of House GOPers signaled opposition to it.

The vote was originally planned for Wednesday.

Congress needs to pass a temporary spending measure by Sept. 30 to avoid a shutdown just a month before the 2024 elections.

But Massie, a Northern Kentucky Republican, indicated he was a ‘no’ vote earlier this week inside a House Rules Committee hearing, objecting to an omnibus resolution that doesn’t cut spending.

“It’s all posturing, it’s fake fighting. We all know where it ends up. This is groundhog day,” Massie told the committee. “It’s the same plot every fiscal year.”

“Why do we always spend at least as much as we did last year and why do we never cut spending?” Massie asked his colleagues. “It’s because Democrats want to grow the welfare state and Republicans want to grow the military industrial complex.”

Johnson is attempting to entice his caucus to rally around the spending bill that doesn’t include cuts by attaching a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote.

But Massie dismissed the Save Act as a “bright shiny object” that Johnson will eventually abandon once he’s secured votes to fund the government. The Save Act has little chance of becoming law because of the Democratic controlled Senate.

“This is good political theater. I do like this part of it – that we’re going to see almost every Democrat cast a vote so that illegals can vote in our elections. That’s pretty clever on the part of our speaker to set that up,” Massie said. “But here’s what he’s going to do after you take that vote. He’s going to take it off. The bright shiny object goes away… I hate to break it to the Republicans, you ain’t getting the Save Act. It is not going to stay on this bill.”

It’s not even clear how many Senate Republicans would vote for the Save Act if it reached their chamber.

At his weekly press conference, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-KY, did not specify if he would support Johnson’s plan.

“The first step ought to be what comes out of the House,” McConnell said, “and I think we don’t know right now.”

What’s clear is that McConnell will work to avoid a government shutdown that could endanger Republicans’ chances at retaking the Senate.

“Shutting down the government is always a bad idea, no matter what time of the year it is,” McConnell said Tuesday.

But for Massie, the temporary stoppage of the House vote is a small victory in his fight against the traditional norms of House procedure.

“This week’s production of failure theater has been postponed,” he posted on X Wednesday.

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