Third Time's the Charm?

Plus: House Speaker Elon Musk, the value of the debt ceiling, and D.C.'s shut down specials.

Take three: Congress is scrambling to put together a passable spending deal that will avoid a government shutdown for the third time this week after the House resoundingly rejected a compromise continuing resolution worked out by President-elect Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R–La.).

In a Thursday afternoon tally, representatives voted 174-235 against the Johnson-Trump compromise measure that would have kept the government open through March, spent another $100 billion on disaster relief, and raised the debt ceiling (which the federal government is currently projected to hit in June 2025) for two years.

This second spending deal was offered as an alternative to the first continuing resolution Johnson had worked out with Democrats. That deal also would have kept the government open until March, spent an additional $100 billion on disaster relief, and enacted a bunch of one-off unrelated policies about investment in China, regulation of pharmacy benefit managers, and football stadiums in D.C.

Conservative Republicans balked at that deal for giving far too much away to Democrats. Billionaire Elon Musk went on a social media tirade against the legislation. Eventually, Trump came out against it as well, effectively killing it.

This second Trump-Johnson deal fared even worse. It lost the support of all Democrats while failing to net the support of dozens of Republican fiscal hawks who objected to needlessly raising the debt ceiling without any offsetting spending cuts.

"My position is simple—I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it," said Rep. Chip Roy (R–Texas).

My position is simple - I am not going to raise or suspend the debt ceiling (racking up more debt) without significant & real spending cuts attached to it. I've been negotiating to that end. No apologies. CC: @realDonaldTrump @SpeakerJohnson @SenJohnThune @freedomcaucus

— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) December 19, 2024

If Congress passes nothing, the federal government will shut down at midnight tonight. Reuters reports that Johnson is insisting that Congress will manage to avoid a shutdown, saying "we will come up with another solution." But he didn't offer details on what that solution will be.

Speaker Elon: A few fiscal hawks in Congress are so frustrated with how this process has played out that they're now suggesting a radical change in management. They want House Speaker Elon Musk.

Sen. Rand Paul (R–Ky.) first raised this idea yesterday morning in a tweet, suggesting that making Musk speaker would be just the thing we'd need to disrupt the "uniparty."

The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress . . .  

Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it .  . . nothing's impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka 'uniparty,' lose their ever-lovin'…

— Rand Paul (@RandPaul) December 19, 2024

Sen. Mike Lee (R–Utah) suggested that either Musk or Vivek Ramaswamy, co-leads of the advisory Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), would make a worthy replacement for Johnson.

Lee: I don't think the speaker is going to remain in power.. We need bold new leadership, outside leadership and I think it needs to be a doge speaker. Needs to be either Vivek Ramaswamy or Elon Musk. pic.twitter.com/W7TrN0Ptjq

— Acyn (@Acyn) December 20, 2024

Over at The Dispatch, Nick Catoggio catalogs how Republican lawmakers, even if they're not nominating Musk for speaker, are still crediting him with blowing up Johnson's first spending deal.

What's remarkable about that, notes Catoggio, is that Musk moved not just Congress but Trump himself. The president-elect was reportedly fine with Johnson's initial spending plan until the world's richest man started posting incessantly about how much it sucked.

"If I'm not mistaken, this is the first time since Trump took over the [Republican] party that some other populist has managed to impose his will on it," he writes.

Catoggio is pretty gloomy about this development, and not without reason. Government by billionaire social media posting isn't ideal.

Still, the tension created by Musk and Trump's dual influence on the GOP might prove productive.

Republicans have been so obsequious to Trump for so long that the introduction of a second charismatic figure they also feel the need to placate provides some balance if nothing else.

If a tweetstorm from Elon Musk or Donald Trump could get any one budget deal killed, perhaps Congress will have to slow down, build consensus, and actually legislate out in the open to get things passed.

Indeed, while Trump has made his peace with deficit-busting spending, Musk does seem to have at least some interest in shrinking the size and scope of government. Is it too optimistic to expect that his growing influence will push the next Republican Congress to rein in spending?

Debt roofs and ceilings: Probably, that is too optimistic, given that Musk has also come out in support of the second Trump-Johnson spending deal that retained all the extra disaster spending from the first bill and needlessly lifted the debt ceiling for two years.

First of all, I'm not the author of this proposal. Credit to @realDonaldTrump, @JDVance & @SpeakerJohnson.

Second, this is a MUCH better bill that is closer to being a real continuing resolution (not an omnibus masquerading as a CR), but with support for hurricane victims &… https://t.co/AJTI6BTFdr

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 19, 2024

National Review's Dominic Pino writes that while the debt ceiling is an arbitrary limit, the fact that it periodically forces Congress to act to prevent default on the debt opens up opportunities for spending cuts and other reforms. The occasional deficit-reducing bills Congress has passed in the past few decades have all generally been the product of negotiations about raising the debt limit.

If Trump, Musk, Johnson, and the bulk of Republican lawmakers are all OK with hiking the debt ceiling without any offsetting spending cuts, that does not bode well for deficit reduction in the incoming Republican Congress.

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Scenes from D.C.: The city's restaurants and bars are wasting no time in taking advantage of the looming fiscal chaos. Local food reporter Jessica Sidman reports that businesses are already rolling out their shutdown specials.

Things aren't looking good when DC restaurants are preemptively sending out shutdown specials. pic.twitter.com/pFtFiGJML5

— Jessica Sidman (@jsidman) December 19, 2024

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