Rockin’ around the congressional Christmas tree: Lawmakers pass bill to prevent a government shutdown

“Swinging around the Christmas tree
At the Christmas party jump” – Brenda Lee

It’s a Christmas tradition on Capitol Hill.

The annual custom of rockin’ around the convention Christmas treedecorated with hundreds of legal decorations, advent displays and mistletoe modifications.

The political Polar Express races through the corridors Congress almost every December. It is always the last piece of legislation to come out of the congressional station.

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“All aboard!” shouts the conductor.

Load your Noel needs into the baggage car of this train or they will stay.

So, the representatives decorated their “Christmas tree” in the only way they know how.

This resulted a few days ago in a colossal 1,547 page transitional budget to avoid a government shutdown.

The sheer scope of the law is breathtaking.

Want a hippo for Christmas? With this plan, you would definitely get it.

It wasn’t long until House Republicans shredded the legislation.

“It’s another cramming,” raged Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the morning after congressional leaders announced the bill. “Here’s what you get. ‘Do this or shut down the government.’ So it’s very disappointing.”

Tail. Eric Burlison, R-Mo., did not spare his criticism.

“It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s trash,” Burlison said. “It’s shameful that people are celebrating the arrival of DOGE and yet we’re going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit. It’s ironic.”

Rep. Rich McCormick, R-Ga., derided his colleagues for talking both sides of the aisle when it comes to spending.

“We keep saying we want to take the deficit and the debt seriously. But we keep voting to increase it. You can’t have both,” he said. – This is irresponsible.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, complained that this is business as usual.

“I mean, a swamp is going to be swamped, right?” Roy offered.

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Speaker of the House Mike JohnsonR-La., said the following in the fall:

“We have stopped the Christmas omnibus. I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition. There will be no Christmas omnibus,” Johnson said on September 24. “We won’t be doing any ‘buses’.”

So yours truly pressed Johnson on his promise after frustrated Republicans berated him during the GOP House Conference meeting.

“You said back in September that there would be no more Christmas omnibuses. You no longer ran ‘buses,'” I asked. “But how is this not another Christmas tree for the holidays?”

“Well, it’s not a Christmas tree. It’s not an omnibus,” Johnson replied.

Johnson is technically correct. In appropriations parlance, it’s not a true omnibus — although outside observers and many lawmakers themselves might colloquially call the massive bill an “omnibus.” The Omnibus is where the Congressional Gift wraps all 12 individual spending measures into one package. A “minibus” is where a handful of bills are bundled together.

However, I reminded Johnson of the shame directed at this bill.

“They called this stuffing. They said it was trash. It’s your members who call it that,” I remarked.

“Well, they haven’t even seen it yet,” Johnson said, even though the bill had materialized the night before. “I have a few friends who will say that about any year-end funding measure. This is not an omnibus, OK? This is a little CR (continuing resolution) that we had to add things that were out of our control.”

The bill was provided with a large price tag to cover the entire cost of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore. Radioactive salary increase for MPs. Provisions of health care. Language about concert ticket prices. Emergency aid to farmers. And $110 billion to help cover the devastation from Hurricanes Helena and Milton.

“The intent was, and was until recently, a very simple, very clean interim funding measure for the CR to get us to next year when we have a unified government,” Johnson said. “But a couple of intervening things happened. We had, as we say, bad luck. We had these huge hurricanes.”

But then Elon Musk set the bill on fire. President-elect Trump has requested an immediate increase in the debt ceiling. Debt limit agreements are one of the most complex and contentious issues in Congress. They require weeks, if not months, of painstaking negotiations.

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This wasn’t as simple as giving Santa at the mall a Christmas morning wish list.

The bill began bleeding support just hours before a scheduled vote in the House of Representatives.

But to paraphrase the opening line of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” about Jacob Marley, “That law was dead: to begin with. No doubt about it.”

Democrats were stunned by last-minute external ultimatums. Especially since Johnson attended the Army-Navy football game with Trump last week. How could they not discuss the contours of this law?

“It was blown up by Elon Musk, who has apparently become the fourth branch of government,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Med., mocking the bill. “So who should our leader, (House Minority Leader) Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., be negotiating with? Is it Mike Johnson? Is he the Speaker of the House? Or is it Donald Trump? Or is it Elon Musk. Or is it someone else?”

Johnson and company then drafted a slim 116-page bill to fund the government. But bipartisan lawmakers roasted the measure faster than chestnuts on an open fire.

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, D-Fla., mocked Republicans for insisting they stick to their internal “three-day rule.” This allows lawmakers to review bills for three days before voting. And yet the Republicans were now rushing the new bill to the floor faster than shoppers hurrying home with their treasures.

“Did you print it? How many pages are there? What happened to the 72 hour rule?” mocked Moskowitz.

The account fell to an embarrassing defeat on the floor of the House. He won just 174 yes, punctuated by a staggering 38 Republican negatives.

“Democrats just voted to shut down the government,” said Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, the vice president-elect. “They asked for a shutdown, and I think that’s exactly what they’re going to get.”

The third bill arrived by Friday. And despite the outcry, lawmakers finally passed the law. There was no need to go to “Plan Z”, popularized in “The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie”. The House approved the law in the evening. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appeared on the Senate floor late Friday night.

“Democrats and Republicans just reached an agreement that will allow us to pass CR tonight before the midnight deadline,” Schumer said.

Critics of the third bill might characterize the entire process as a “railroad.” But it was real of railroads that prevented the Senate from passing legislation in time. An unnamed Republican senator has held off on Amtrak board nominees. But after senators resolved that issue, the Senate finally aligned with the House to avert a shutdown around 12:45 a.m. ET Saturday, 45 minutes past the midnight deadline.

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The reduced bill included disaster relief and emergency aid for farmers. But when it comes to appropriations, the bill simply restored all current funding at current levels. It was definite not “Christmas tree”. This only allowed the government to work until March 14. So there is no holiday crisis.

Merry Christmas.

But beware of the Ides of March.