Speaker Mike Johnson is facing an extremely narrow majority in the House and tough vote math as Congress confronts upcoming battles over government funding, aid to Ukraine and Israel and border security.

At the start of the new year, Republicans control just 220 seats while Democrats control 213, which means the House GOP can’t afford to lose more than a few votes to pass party-line priorities. Additionally, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office has announced that he will work remotely until returning to Washington in February as he recovers from a stem cell transplant.

The House Republican majority will shrink even further by the end of the month with Ohio GOP Rep. Bill Johnson resigning from Congress on January 21 to take a new job as president of Youngstown State University. At that point, Republicans will control 219 seats to 213 for Democrats.

In a rare event, Congress faces not one but two government shutdown deadlines early in the new year – on January 19 and February 2.

  • tygerprints@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    As a Democrat libtard, I sincerely hope that this time it’s for real - this time the government really DOES shut down. I can’t think of a better holiday gift to the American people. I don’t’ know why they think WE are afraid of the government shutting down, when in fact it’s something I hope and pray for every single day!! And yet they never seem to have to the balls to actually let it happen.

    • MicroWave@lemmy.worldOP
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      10 months ago

      Because it’s not a gift to about 4 million federal workers who would go without pay in a shutdown:

      “The politicians aren’t thinking about us down here on the ground floor doing the work,” said Booth, who is also a local liaison for the American Federation of Government Employees, a union representing federal workers. “Some of us live paycheck to paycheck. You take away a paycheck, how am I going to live for the next two weeks? How can I take care of my kids? How am I going to take care of my wife? And that type of mindset ends up causing bad things to go through some people’s minds and some people can’t get through it.”

      https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/government-shutdown-federal-workers-lose-pay-military-rcna116891

      • tygerprints@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        It would be horrible for federal workers and for enlisted people who might go without pay. I totally get that. Those people should be entitled to retain their daily earnings while the government goes into shutdown (if it happens).

    • stoly@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      LOL nice lie but you failed. This is precisely the sort of fiction that neocons salivate over.

      also, why do you delight in millions of lives being overturned for cheap political victories? you have an empathy problem there

      • tygerprints@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        I know this is new or different from what you want to believe, but what I said it not a lie. I have been praying and hoping for a government shut down that ACTUALLY happens, for over a year or more now. It’s something I would love to see and I hope I really get to see it ACTUALLY happen and soon.

        • stoly@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Yeah, you love to artificially put millions of people out of work and their children into the street because that will totally fix all the problems, trust you. Class act.

    • nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de
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      10 months ago

      I’m guessing you weren’t alive or old enough to remember when it happened in 1995-6?

      While it will hurt the party in charge (R’s in congress), it can also fuck up a bunch of things; Social security, health department, education department, the EPA, FDA and USDA (I’m assuming you eat food here in the US).

      Some effects of the shutdowns included the government, tourism, and airline industry losing millions of dollars in revenue during this period, with disruptions made towards the processing of passports and visas, and work on medical research and toxic waste cleanup being halted. Wikipedia

      It can’t be helpful for federal trials of insurrectionists either.