Dumpster Fire On Capitol Hill: Speaker's Plan in Flames!

A number of House Republicans blasted Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Tuesday over his handling of the looming possibility of a government shutdown.

According to his critics, Johnson’s attempts at averting a shutdown before Friday’s deadline amount to a “dumpster fire,” “blank check,” and “pet project filled disaster.”

Asked about the text of Johnson’s proposal, Rep.

Eric Burlison (R-MO) said “It’s a total dumpster fire. I think it’s garbage. This is what Washington, D.C. has done. This is why I ran for Congress to try to stop this, and sadly, this is happening again. I think that it’s shameful that people that celebrate DOGE coming in. I can’t-, and yet we’re going to vote for another billion dollars to be added to the deficit? And so it’s ironic.”

After getting a follow-up about what this episode might mean for “Speaker Johnson’s future,” Burlison said he was “disappointed.” Per CNN, he also refused to commit to backing Johnson’s bid to hold on to the Speaker’s gavel in January.

In a post on social media, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a longtime critic of Johnson, mused that “This CR is turning into a three-month omnibus, that will result in more Democrats than Republicans voting for it. The Swamp is using farmers and victims of natural disasters as pawns to fund an over-bloated pet project filled disaster.”

Speaking with reporters at the Capitol, Greened decried Johnson’s…   efforts as the “same pattern of behavior” that she’s criticized in the past.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) also piled on in his own gaggle with reporters.

“Swamp’s gonna swamp, right? 1,400 pages, still haven’t seen the text,” he observed. “This is not the way to do business, right?”

Asked how much of the blame falls on Johnson, Roy said that “the conference itself owns this” and “needs to decide whether we’re actually serious about spending.”

“We’re just fundamentally unserious about spending. And as long as you got a blank check, you can’t shrink government.

If you can’t shrink government, you can’t live free,” he concluded, ignoring one journalist’s question about whether he intended to support Johnson next month.