Trump seeks a “Clean Continuing Resolution”. The spineless House cheers.
A clean CR and hike of the debt ceiling cost Kevin McCarthy his job as speaker and threatened the job of his replacement Mike Johnson. Guess what?
Trump Endorses ‘Clean’ CR
Fox news reports Trump Endorses ‘Clean’ CR as Government Shutdown Looms
As the prospect of a mid-March government shutdown looms, President Donald Trump endorsed the idea of a continuing resolution to fund the government through the end of September.
“As usual, Sleepy Joe Biden left us a total MESS. The Budget from last YEAR is still not done. We are working very hard with the House and Senate to pass a clean, temporary government funding Bill (“CR”) to the end of September. Let’s get it done!” he declared in a Thursday night Truth Social post.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, told Fox News Digital in a statement on Friday that he will back Trump’s request.
“I will support President Trump’s request for a clean CR to hold spending flat while DOGE continues to identify cuts, the administration re-programs those funds, and Congress readies a strong FY26 appropriation package that cuts waste and reflects DOGE and common sense,” the congressman noted in the statement.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has indicated that “anomalies” can be inserted into a CR to increase or decrease spending, noting that language could be added to reflect spending changes like cuts associated with USAID.
“I would have a real hard time voting for a clean [continuing resolution] after everything that we’ve seen out of DOGE,” Rep. Eli Crane, R-Ariz., said, according to The Hill.
Fox News Digital reached out to Crane’s office on Friday to request a comment from the congressman. “I have little confidence that Congress will be able to keep up with President Trump,” Crane said in a statement emailed over by a staffer who explained the lawmaker was referring to the prospect of Congress making the Trump administration’s actions permanent via legislation.
“Why are we even having DOGE if we’re not gonna solidify and put it in the CR?” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., asked, according to The Hill.
A Debate Over Clean
Politico reports Trump’s spending play raises ‘risk of a shutdown,’ top Democrats say
Top Democratic appropriators said on Friday that President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon bipartisan spending talks and endorse a long-term funding patch is “raising the risk of a shutdown.”
Speaking two weeks before the March 14 funding deadline, Washington Sen. Patty Murray and Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro said in a joint statement that Republican leaders were “walking away” from negotiations aimed at cementing new government spending levels.
Trump said he wanted a “clean, temporary government funding Bill” through the end of fiscal 2025, but it is unclear what exactly “clean” might mean. Some Republicans want Musk’s cuts reflected in any new bill, while Democrats want guardrails written in to prevent further slashing. Disaster aid, including for the recent California wildfires, is also at issue ahead of the deadline.
“Republican leadership’s plan to pass a full-year continuing resolution with Musk’s devastating ‘DOGE cuts’ would give Trump new flexibility to spend funding as he sees fit,” the Democrats said in their statement, noting that Musk has advocated for a government shutdown.
Murray and DeLauro said they “remain ready” to negotiate a bipartisan deal to fund the government with updated budgets and “hope Republicans will return to the table to do just that.”
Nonsensical Fears
Fears of a government shutdown are nonsensical. If Democrats withhold votes for a spending deal, they would be blamed for a shutdown.
The party that supports shutdowns as a negotiation tactic always collapses.
After all the hype from Republicans about a clean CR, key clean CR opponents like Chip Roy are now on board.
Continuing Resolution Flashbacks
November 11, 2023: No Surprise, House Speaker Johnson Proposes Same Plan as McCarthy
There are likely big surprises elsewhere, but there is no surprise in this corner regarding Johnson’s plans to keep the government running.
“It’s…100% clean. And I 100% oppose,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas) on social media.
December 19, 2024: House Rejects Trump-Supported Stopgap Funding Plan, 37 Republicans Say No
37 Republicans say no to Trump.
Yesterday, Speaker Mike Johnson agreed to pass a 1500+ page continuing resolution budget monstrosity.
The bill died after Elon Musk and president-elect Trump trashed it.
Johnson then slimmed the bill down to 116 pages. That bill had Trump’s support.
Not mine. But I don’t get a vote. Regardless, I was reasonably confident the revised bill would blow up, and it did.
Once Johnson stripped 1300 pages of Democrat goodies the bill was doomed in the Senate and I thought the House as well.
Sure enough, the vote was 234 against to 174 for. That is nowhere close to a majority even if you throw in 21 non-voting and 1 who voted present.
Trump Threatens to Take Down Chip Roy
Also on December 19, but ahead of the vote, I reported Trump Threatens to Take Down Chip Roy, One of the Only True Fiscal Conservatives
Massive Republican infighting between Trump and fiscal conservatives is underway.
Trump was annoyed because Chip Roy, a member of the Freedom Caucus blasted the Trump-approved 116-page bill.
Well now, Chip Roy is on board. Fancy that.
January 18, 2024: Mike Johnson Is the New (But Not Improved) Kevin McCarthy
The House just passed Mike Johnson’s bipartisan continuing resolution punt. Dear Republicans, please wave the white flag and surrender before doing more damage, because more damage is on the table just today.
I took a lot of flack for saying, with reason, that Johnson would not do any better than McCarthy.
The McCarthy proposal would have extended government funding through Oct. 31, but at a $1.471 trillion annual rate, down from $1.6 trillion in fiscal 2023. And it included funds for the border.
We are now up to $1.6+++ trillion under Speaker Mike Johnson and that does not include Ukraine, Israel, or the border.
Nor does it include the full ramifications of child tax credits that now appear to cost an average of $150 billion a year. The estimate yesterday was $78 billion a year for the entire deal.
It Just Doesn’t Matter
“It doesn’t matter who is sitting in the speaker’s seat or who has the majority. We keep doing the same stupid stuff,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R., Texas), a leader of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus.
The Hard-Line Freedom Caucus
The allegedly hard-line Freedom Caucus led by Chip Roy is now OK with clean continuing resolutions.
I can guarantee the result in advance: Trump will propose budget-busting spending items that DOGE won’t come close to covering.
Republicans will dramatically increase the deficit and will use gimmicks and ridiculous assumptions to deny that fact.
But that’s OK now that Trump wants them.
What sorry state of fiscal affairs coupled with massive Republican hypocrisy, as predicted.
Spare me the sap on blaming this on Biden. Republicans have the White House, Senate, and House.
There should be no increase in the deficit in any CR, and no gimmicks to do so. Period.
But all those who agreed when Biden was president have now caved in. The fiscal conservative hypocrites cheer the result.
I supported Trump but despise the inability/unwillingess to stop spending increases, the deficit, further corporate tax cuts, etc. As you’ve said, the margin is so narrow that it is nearly impossible to pass any actual spending cuts. However, I will also say that even if they held a damn 30 seat majority they wouldn’t. Fiscal hypocrites, the lot. Until it happens only a fool would bet anything above a buck that it would happen.
Here’s what shows how incapable or unwilling they are: they aren’t kicking the can until April or May. Nope. September. The length of procrastination indicates they have NO intention or ability to do anything . Imagine collecting a paycheck to simply sign something that says “carry on”.
Congrats to Bill. I elevated his comment to the top.
“The length of procrastination indicates they have NO intention or ability to do anything . Imagine collecting a paycheck to simply sign something that says carry on”.
I also appreciate Peelo’s comment “Spot on. My compliments for calling this, and for your predictions. It will be overspend as usual, just recast into Trump’s priorities. Deja vu all over again.”
You can’t really be surprised?
A rose is a rose is a rose. A politician is a politician is a politician regardless of what party they are in. Continuing business as usual maximizes their own potential revenue possibilities.
The dems promised the moon to voters in order get voted and diminish the reps, to gain a total control. Their 100 years miniaturization plan failed. The uniparty had a regime change by the invisible hand.
I called this in advance every step of the way, so no surprise here.
Congress isn’t Trump’s friend. it is not up to them to cut gov debt. Trump dynamic thinking changed the the 100 years old – Wilson, FDR and LBJ – formula: the dem raise taxes to spend and to increase the gov. The reps are raising debt to do the same.
Tax and spend has been in the people’s hands — through the legislature — in England before us, since at least the Glorious Revolution in the 1690’s (actually much further back than that). The great fear of our Founders was too much concentrated power — a “king.” (Second place goes to “the mob” — the unrestrained rabble.) The grants of power — war, tax, treaties, in the Constitution are explicitly to Congress. President’s job is to execute — carry out, complete jobs, with some limited power to act quickly and decisively. Congress’s to legislate. Congress I admit has fumbled the ball, and ceded lots to the Presidency. But that is the fault of the people for being too complacent, and letting selfishness prevent what the deliberative lawmakers should do. The people vote Congress in or out. Trump’s moves are usurping from the people, via their grant of power to Congress, however one feels about Congress’s errors.
All of which demonstrates what?–except that a well-designed system can fail, as the Founders understood. Which of them said something about the need for periodic revolutions?
The proof will be in the pudding as far as the Fiscal Year 2025 deficit being no more than the 2024 deficit of $1.9 trillion.
It would be the first time since 2001 that the deficit did not increase.
I agree. Trump wants excessive tax cuts, as do the RINOs & even some liberals in Congress. If Trump was serious, he would push to make permanent the tax cuts for those under ~$500K. The uber rich would pay a bit more in taxes which might let him cut taxes on the first X amount of tips & reduce social security taxes to maybe 50%.
The goal should be to create an offset that pays for itself. Instead, they’re going to ram though big tax cuts which adds to the deficit and then blame each other when it’s time to vote on real spending cuts, probably in a separate bill that won’t pass.
There’s no indication that DOGE is nothing more than a ruse, making it look like we’re saving tens of billions of dollars, but we’re not. Now, if Trump lays out a REAL plan in his SOTU address, then I’ll back track some. But call me skeptical for sure.
Representative Sylvester Turner (D) from Houston died last night.
Need to re-work all calculations (for shutdown odds, etc) — the GOP’s House margin just doubled, from 1 to 2 votes
“We are working very hard with the House and Senate to pass a clean, temporary government funding Bill (“CR”) to the end of September.”
Nixon temporarily closed the gold window. It has been closed for over 50 years now.
In the professional negotiating world this tactic is known as Deadlining. You drag things out for months or even years until there is only one choice left. So everyone has to accept it. One name for people that use this technique is also known as being a Russian Negotiator. Remember the Paris Peace Talks.
Both parties
are guilty of using this tool.
But the
Majority Media sweeps it under the rug rather than doing their duty under the
First Amendment and blowing the whistle. Since they aren’t doing their job and
therefore the Government is bankrupt, let’s sue themto recover the $2.5
Trillion missing from the Social Security (slush) Trust fund.
it takes cooperation to create the largest deficit in American history.
The vast majority of the US populace are debtors (and 90%+ of business owners), up to their neck in “stuff” and making waves. The best way to get rid of debt is to monetize it, i.e. high inflation and low interest rates. In the short run (4 years?), it’s great for asset holding debtors, 60%+ of the population. Recession pushes interest rates down. Tariffs and other “disruptive activity” point towards “inflation up.”
Would I be aiming for that if I were in charge? No. Not by a long shot. But nobody cares what I think. The plan may already be in motion, and the magic 8-ball says, “Signs point to yes”.
I just paid my house off. Zero debt. Sweet!
“Republicans have the White House, Senate, and House.”
You left out the supreme court (which is constitutionally not supposed to be politically polarized – but now is)
I am with you! “Sleepy Joe Biden left us a total MESS” but “Excuses” don’t move the needle we need moved. A “Shut Down” will surely be totally blamed on the Democrat’s. With “Roy” onboard Trump has clout for a proper deal, and stronger support for a deal period.
Where Trump and His Team (Elon, Bondi, Patel etc.) want to take America back to, will be painful, so He Needs as many in the boat, rowing in the same direction, for long enough to start conducting “Noticeable Change” people see, feel, and can actually physically touch. Right now He is doing whatever it’s going to take, to fill each and every body He needs, and as quickly as possible, to leave room for the ones who head off course along the way. “Time is on His Side”
That’s my view…
I would love to see a shutdown, but I don’t think Trump will follow through. That’s what my gut tells me, but I hope I’m wrong.
I don’t think Trump is nearly in agreement as we are being led to believe. He doesn’t like what has to be done other, but He didn’t make them do it, but has to reprimand accordingly to make sure it’s not worth people doing so, at the cost that these folks will be held to endure. They do deserve everything however, for what they did, I found guilty.
Since the same thing happens every year no matter who is President and who is in control of House and Senate, why does anyone care? Just love to debate and complain, I guess. We have our own lives to live and budgets to balance. My goal is to outearn them.
Well with the “efficiency” DOGE has created social security checks may not go out. Not because of funding problems but because there won’t be anyone to cut the checks or help resolve issues. Who knows, maybe your social security check might end up in my bank account and it will take years to sort out….
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/01/doge-actions-may-cause-social-security-benefit-interruption-ex-agency-head.html
You reap what you sow but this may help those debt loads. The ironing is delicious.
So what?
Democrats did reap what they sowed, didn’t they?
ZH: “Why Is Everything Locked Up At CVS?”: Rahm Emanuel, Fareed Zakaria Admit Democrat Cities Are “Terribly Run”
How many times do you have to be played before ya’ll realized it’s all fake? https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/what-if-488
The difference is this one is a Big BEAUTIFUL spending bill. Past ones were merely Big.
Trump is spot on here, he understands Wynne Godley’s Sectoral Balances and how govt debt is private sectors savings.
socialism right here!! This is egg farm welfare. Shouldn’t an appropriately running market be picking up the tab for in their own self interest?
> In its plan, the USDA said it would spend up to half a billion dollars boosting bio-safety precautions at egg farms.
Seems like just paying for this outright means farms won’t have to bother, or even bother to keep up with those precautions because the feds will come running again the next time it happens. https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/g-s1-51270/egg-prices-usda-bird-flu
ya ya when do I get my $5000 check??
This is discouraging…
Anyone who is surprised by this is dumb. Trump and these republicans were never about balancing the budget. They were for cutting as much costs as possible in order to carve the biggest tax break to billionaires as possible. All the MAGA who were expecting something else deserve what is coming to them.
The GOP has not been sincerely about fiscal responsibility for some time. Look at W Bush: tax cuts and spend for buddies (plus wars on the credit card). The GOP has been much better at messaging — hanging the “tax and spend” and other shameful labels on the Dems, who admittedly have done plenty to deserve it.
Pol-i-ticks … Keep DOGING.
Gold is an asset of the last resort when gov default on its debt, or when a country lose a war. In recessions gold fall. After the recession, when highly skilled workers wages will rise, tax collection will fill gov coffer. The gov will cut debt by a 1/3. Investors will trust the US. No WWIII and no default under Trump/Vance. But if the dems will takeover the risk is high.
After Hakeem the regime change ousted McC. Trump raised tariffs to avoid becoming his hostage. A clean CR for redundancy to pay the unemployed in case of recession, when tax collection fall and expenses rise..
Absolutely, SPOT ON article Mish !
Democrats are “tax and spend”. Republicans are “borrow and spend”.
Two sides of the same coin.
Correct me if I’m wrong, because I don’t think I am: The $4 trillion increase in the debt ceiling is the single largest increase in both dollar terms and percentage terms ever.
It appears that they are deliberately trying to drive the U.S. into insolvency as soon as possible.
Someone is buying all that debt, including the new debt. We have billionaires, and soon we will have trillionaires. You think they are gonna put that wealthy in the market? Hell no. They want the US govt. to guarantee their wealth now and forever. Where else they gonna buy bonds? Turkey?
Don’t forget, those deficits and T-Bonds at high interest are financing our trade deficit too. As Triffin pointed out in the 1960’s, the U.S. must incur domestic budget deficits sufficient to fund global trade with the dollar as reserve currency. And sure enough, for the decade before Covid, U.S. budget deficits aligned pretty closely with the trade deficit. After Covid, deficits went way off the charts, many multiples in excess of the trade deficit. And yet, Republicans still want to renew the 2017 tax cuts?!*?!
Spending won’t ever be cut enough to pay the deficit until we get to a point of defaulting on the debt.
Rich people own all that debt and now control the Federal Govt. There will be no default.
Bond massacre #1 might be followed by another one.
Nobody seems to have any answers, plenty of critics, but no bright ideas from any “side”.
What you dont have is an idea where everyone wins.
This is one answer. The other is to cut the deficits where interest is the only category untouchable.
https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/2023/06/02/fiscal-dominance-and-the-return-of-zero-interest-bank-reserve-requirements.pdf
For the 99th time, almost all Federal spending (80% is SS, Medicare, Medicaid, Interest and Defense) is WILDLY popular, and whenever the Repubs go into any specifics about cutting them, they get their heads handed to them. We have a REVENUE problem, a 50 year time period (since 1970s) where the rich have paid a lot of tax (35% ish) but at one time (after WW2) paid a marginal rate of 80-90%. We have been shorting ourselves revenue, which is the real problem. As long as the Repubs bow to kings and the oligarchs, there will never be a balanced budget.
An unusually sensible comment from you.
Ive been saying the same thing for awhile. Its not even really an opinion. The public wants certain services from the Fed Govt, and dont really want anything cut. So basic budgeting .. you need more income.
So the democrats aren’t part of the bribe yourself a politician for benefits club??? Both parties have betrayed our country, we have the best government money can buy. Until they only allow one term and no campaign contributions, ie govt financed elections, we will continue to circle the drain, Drain the swamp applies to all those in DC.
People like you and everyone else voted for everyone in Congress. One terms arent going to fix anything. The public wants a big welfare state and we dont want to pay for it. Simple as that.
Scott gets it. Bravo!!!!
I never vote for anyone that wants the job. I fellow the Greeks in their best time, a lottery of all the land owning males. They had skin in the game.
If Trump will cut taxes, replacing them with tariffs, the rich will invest in the US, in
innovative co, instead of frivolous spending. More jobs for highly skilled and skilled worker. A good economy lift all wages. The want of the US dollar will rise.
Keep dreaming.
The US cannot tax our way out of 100K of debt per citizen. The answer is private sector growth, not government growth. Past 120% debt to gdp is growth regressive. The rest of the world is past the Rubicon and it takes time to balance the budget. A rug pull of government support of the economy will cause a depression here and worldwide. The fed does not hike rates by 5% a time so the government needs to work through this mess. Patience through the tough work that Trump was elected to do. We are lost if we continue as we were
to grow you need customers, to have customers they need cashflow… the problem in many countries is the spending is way too high, too much luxury public services, on the never never… it seems unlikely to change, so crash and burn is most likely.
Old fat countries with massive debt overhang dont and cant grow very much.
Yep, you called it. But really it was obvious as soon as they took social security out of the discussion. Ignoring that is like trying to fix your money problems by shopping at Walmart instead of Whole Foods, while there are two financed BMW Roadsters in the garage.
But social security is nit the source or cause of our current deficits (maybe at the margins but just barely as outflows are just slightly above inflows). SS has had almost zero impact on the accumulated public debt to date, which would actually be higher without SS based on federal trust fund accounting methodology. I am not suggesting that SS does not need some fine tuning but with small tweaks over time, SS could be deficit and debt neutral. It has a revenue source, many pay federal tax on SS (and not all of the federal SS tax flows back to the SS Trust Fund). Salary subject to SS withholding is indexed to inflation, and on it goes. SS is a huge budget line item, but it is one of the few budget line items that has a dedicated revenue source. If you want to take SS revenue and apply it to other uses, you should state that as a policy objective. In fact, we did exactly this for about 37 years: SS structural surpluses were spent, thus of-setting (lowering) public debt issuance by an equal amount of the annual surplus. How funny it is that we only have an issue with SS when the structural surpluses have all predictably disappeared (due to predictable demographic trends that have all played out as planned)!
There is no Trust Fund.
Government spent all of the money (and then some) elsewhere.
Starting 2032 or so benefits will have to be reduced, at least based on current accounting.
But it’s all a mirage as rising debt and deficit levels prove.
No surprise that the sheep are following the shepherd.
Careful, Musk might fire them if they pass too much spending.
Safer to let the government close.
Pelosi getting the last laugh. While she is mostly irrelevant at the moment (other than killing it on insider trading) her budget busting spending lives on in all its glory.
By the time the 2026 FY budget rolls around DOGE will be just another forgotten and failed effort. Had they had the guts to include at least some of the identified waste and corruption cuts in the CR it might have been supportable to an extent.
But as you say, business as usual.
The folks benefiting from the extended tax cuts can now privatize all kinds of things the public formerly owned (but DOGE points to), like weather prediction. Shades of the selloff that happened in the former USSR, leading to the oligarchs era.
We should let Putin be president of the US. It’s not constitutional, but we could make an exception like with Obama.
Accuweather has been lobbying for that for a few decades now.
https://theweatherstationexperts.com/accuweather-nws-privatization/
Spot on. My compliments for calling this, and for your predictions. It will be overspend as usual, just recast into Trump’s priorities. Deja vu all over again.