"This gets real": GOP escalates shutdown fight with rescissions, layoffs
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Speaker Mike Johnson, flanked by members of the House GOP leadership team, speaks during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 2. Photo: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Friday that more rescissions will be coming "in the days ahead," as the Trump administration announced it has begun its much anticipated layoffs of federal workers.
Why it matters: A fresh effort to claw back, or rescind, congressionally approved spending could threaten the little progress made toward reopening the government.
- "We worked on rescissions, and there'll be more of that, we expect, in the days ahead," Johnson said during a rare joint press call with the House Freedom Caucus.
- "A rescissions package is part of our process. I know the Democrats hate to cut spending in any way, in any form," the speaker told reporters after the call.
State of play: While health care has been the key demand for Democrats in the shutdown fight, they also want assurances that the White House will spend the money lawmakers authorize.
- "Whatever final resolution we reach to re-open the government, in my view, has to include some protection and some understanding that the funds that we will appropriate will not then be taken back through rescissions," Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.) told Axios in the Capitol on Wednesday.
Catch up quick: Congress passed a $9 billion rescissions package in July that revoked funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, National Public Radio and foreign aid programs.
- Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) warned Republicans at the time that more rescissions could jeopardize Democrats' support for government funding bills.
The intrigue: Johnson also said on the call that Republicans "would like to do another reconciliation bill this fall, before the end of the calendar year, and potentially a third one in spring,"
- Freedom Caucus members were given assurances that some of their priorities, like tackling the deficit, making deeper cuts to wind and solar tax credits, and more aggressively going after fraud in Medicaid, would be addressed in future reconciliation bills.
Yes, but: It took Congress seven months to pass Trump's "big, beautiful" bill, so Johnson's goal of pushing through two more reconciliation packages within the next year is an ambitious one.
- And undoing cuts to Medicaid included in the first reconciliation bill is also at the center of the current funding fight.
The bottom line: The start of mass federal layoffs — coupled with talk of more rescissions, and Johnson plotting reconciliation 2.0 and 3.0 — all are signaling a hardening of Republicans' stance in the shutdown fight.
- "To their credit, the White House has now for ten days held off doing anything in hopes that enough Senate Democrats would come to their senses and do the right thing and fund the government," Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) said Friday.
- "Now that we're getting where people are going to start missing paychecks, this gets real," Thune added.
