Thankfully, the latest demonstration of our government’s ability to get absolutely nothing done while managing to spend vast amounts of money doing so has come to a sudden and complete stop.

The “Further Continuing Appropriations and Disaster Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2025” – or the latest Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government funded – was meant to be business as usual on the Hill.  Because Congress and the White House cannot come up with any kind of meaningful budget, these CRs have to be passed from time to time to keep the government running.  Without a passage of the CR – America closes.

Or so they say.

CRs only impact discretionary spending – or those parts of government funding that are not part of an actual law but are part of agency budgets that have to be reapproved.  Thus – all the essential parts of government are funded – while things like national parks have to be shuttered.

Closing down even non-essential spending is never a good look.   Politically speaking, the party who ends up being responsible for a government shutdown  – usually the Republicans - gets excoriated in the press and hit hard in the next election.  While Democrats have shut down the system – notably over the border wall in 2018 (https://www.thoughtco.com/government-shutdown-history-3368274) – their allies in the press usually spin the cycle to always make Republicans look greedy and uncaring – no matter which side of the shutdown they are placed.

As a result, it has always been good policy for the Republicans to do everything they can to avoid shutting down the government.   Especially in a time where they only controlled the lower chamber in two branches of government, the hope of forcing the Democrats to their fiscal knees was a slim one at best.  Republicans had to be very careful in what they are willing to politically die for to get.

Until now.

While the Democrats still hold the Senate and White House, what has changed of course is that the power shift in DC happens in just over a month.  Many say that Donald Trump is already operating as the de facto president.  But in any event, the Republicans do not need to play defense politics any more on Continuing Resolutions.

The problem in this – and any other CR – is that our elected leaders cannot help themselves but to pack even more spending and regulations into what should be a straight forward bill to continue funding.  They were about to vote themselves pay increases at a time when Americans are still hurting from the Biden economy.  They were going to increase the national debt to meet expenses.  Finally,  they were ready to pass restrictions on free speech and promote other legislation that clearly was and is not in keeping with Republican values.

It was not a good bill.

As of publication of this article, Fox News is reporting that Republicans have come up with a Plan B to avoid a government shutdown:

Multiple sources told Fox News Digital that the deal would extend current government funding levels for three months and also suspend the debt limit for two years – something President-elect Trump has demanded. (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/house-republicans-agree-plan-b-government-funding-bill-trumps-debt-limit-increase)

But that is not good enough.  As Brit Hume is posting on X, while some “porky” parts of the bill in this new plan seem to be removed – we don’t really know that yet – it actually suspends the debt limit for two years and increases hurricane relief.

Speaker Mike Johnson would have loved simply to pass a barebones CR to keep the government open until the new year. But there is a group of House Republicans who absolutely will not vote for any CR, clean or otherwise. So he was forced to negotiate with the Democrats to get just enough of their votes to pass the bill, which contains among many other things billions in relief for storm victims in NC and elsewhere. Now the whole thing has collapsed amid a public outcry, fanned in part by Elon Musk, to the extraneous spending Democrats demanded as a price for their votes. Trump, who had supported Johnson in this until Wednesday, pulled the plug and now demands a "clean" CR. Except Trump also wants the storm relief funding and he wants the debt limit raised so he won't have to do it next year. Now big parts of the government could shut down Friday night, storm-ravaged areas will not get their relief, the public won't like it,  and Republicans will get the blame because they always do. (@BritHume, 12/19/2024, https://x.com/brithume/status/1869846050690789856)

Speaker Mike Johnson would have loved simply to pass a barebones CR to keep the government open until the new year. But there is a group of House Republicans who absolutely will not vote for any CR, clean or otherwise. So he was forced to negotiate with the Democrats to get just…

— Brit Hume (@brithume) December 19, 2024

A bad bill is a bad bill, even if President Trump is pushing it.  So, we need to shut it down.

Now is the time for Republicans to start getting used to taking the Hard Hit.  (Credit to Ben Shapiro for that term) Taking the Hard Hit means being willing to risk it all  to fundamentally change how we do business in Washington, DC.  The Democrats took the Hard Hit when they passed the Affordable Care Act – better known as Obama care.  They took the Hard Hit when they passed the Inflation Reduction Act.  They knew it would hurt them politically – and it did.  But they did it anyway.  Taking the Hard Hit only happens when the party taking the hit is in power.  Now that they will control all aspects of government, Republicans need to do the same.

We have much bigger issues such as social security reform, entitlement cutbacks, and the reduction of taxes to tackle.  We have multiple government agencies such as the Department of Education and the Internal Revenue Service that need to be either removed or vastly cut back,  All of these areas are usually off limits politically, because changing them causes social and political upheaval that the GOP has not been willing to face.

Yet, they were elected to face them.

Once again, the Republicans were given the White House and both chambers of Congress.  They already had the Supreme Court.  They are in yet another historic position to get things done that will only have a net positive for the American people.  But doing so will mean bad press from a media who does not like them anyway.  It means endless X and Facebook posts berating the GOP.  It means facing challenges in elections – although those elections are two years away.  In short it means governing.

If they stand up and govern – if Republicans act like Republicans – not only will they change America, they will find out at the polls that Americans actually want them to get things done.  They want them to govern from a conservative viewpoint.  They want them to reign in spending, to stop putting us in debt to foreign agencies, to create and stick by budgets, and to stop increasing the size of government. 

There has never been a better time politically for Republicans to show America they have a spine and are willing to stick to their values.  Pass a clean Continuing Resolution – or shut down the government.  It is the first hill that Republicans need to be willing to die on in service to their country.

It certainly will not be the last.