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Which spending bills or riders did Mike Johnson insist on in late 2024 and early 2025?
Executive Summary
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s public demands in late 2024 and early 2025 concentrated on the timing and shape of government funding, not a long list of new named riders; he repeatedly pushed for a short-term continuing resolution that would extend funding into early 2025 so a Republican majority could control full-year appropriations after the presidential transition, and he ultimately scrapped a last‑minute omnibus-style spending bill that contained disaster aid, health extenders, and a congressional pay raise amid Republican opposition and objections from President-elect Trump [1] [2]. Reporting also shows Johnson favored moving funding debates into conference for a trio of appropriations bills and tied reopening negotiations to policy concessions, reflecting a strategy focused on process and timing rather than a single catalogue of riders [3] [4].
1. Why the Calendar Became the Weapon: Johnson’s Short‑Term Funding Push
Johnson adopted a short-term funding strategy in November 2024 that aimed to extend current funding into March 2025 rather than pass full-year bills through September, arguing that a later deadline would allow a Republican Congress and incoming administration greater control over final appropriations. Reporting describes Johnson’s plan as intentionally deferring the major fights until after the transition, a move designed to sidestep immediate clashes with his party’s hard-right flank while risking a sharper fight early in the next administration [1]. This calendar-first approach changed the leverage dynamics: Johnson publicly preferred short CRs and some allies signaled they wanted an extension into January rather than December to avoid immediate return-to-session votes; the approach framed negotiations more around timing and conference procedures than the content of particular riders, even as policy fights — notably over healthcare subsidies — remained central to broader shutdown debates [3].
2. The “Cramnibus” That Didn’t Make It: What Johnson Rejected in March 2025
In March 2025 Johnson abandoned a hastily assembled, omnibus-style bill — labeled by critics as a “Cramnibus” — that would have kept the government funded into the spring and included roughly $110 billion in disaster relief, various health-care policy extenders, and a congressional pay raise. He dropped the bill after backlash from some House Republicans and objections from President-elect Trump, who opposed billions in added spending; that decision directly shows Johnson insisting on not advancing a bill that lacked Republican consensus and that contravened the incoming administration’s priorities [2]. The collapse of that package set the stage for renewed confrontations over how to fold disaster aid and extenders into future negotiations and highlighted Johnson’s willingness to let a stopgap fail rather than carry a contentious spending package into law without buy-in from key Republican actors [2].
3. Conference First: The Three Appropriations Johnson Wanted to Push
GOP leaders, with Johnson’s apparent support, pushed to formally conference three appropriations bills that fund the Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments and the legislative branch, indicating a tactical preference for negotiating particular bills in conference rather than folding everything into a single continuing resolution. That posture reflects a strategy to resolve discrete funding priorities through the formal House-Senate conference process, where House conservatives believed they could extract or preserve policy changes, and also signaled that Johnson sought to parcel the fight into winnable pieces rather than concede broad omnibus compromises [3]. The emphasis on conferencing key bills underscores how Johnson’s insistence in this period was procedural as much as programmatic: he insisted on shaping the negotiation vehicle and timing more than on a public list of attachable riders.
4. Healthcare Subsidies and Political Leverage: What Johnson Wouldn’t Negotiate
During the early 2025 shutdown debates, the expiration of Affordable Care Act premium subsidies became a central bargaining chip; Democrats demanded extensions, while Johnson and many House Republicans refused to negotiate until the government was reopened. That stance illustrates Johnson’s insistence on withholding engagement on specific policy extenders — like ACA subsidies — until procedural reopening demands were met, effectively turning the subsidy extension into leverage in broader funding talks. Coverage frames this as a deliberate tactic to force Democrats to accept reopening terms before addressing substantive health policy, and it explains why specific riders were subsumed under larger procedural fights over reopening and sequencing [5] [3].
5. Divergent Views and the Big Picture: What Johnson’s Priorities Reveal
Different outlets portray Johnson’s moves either as disciplined fiscal strategy or as risky brinkmanship: supporters argued his short-CR preference protected conservative priorities for a GOP-controlled appropriations window, while critics warned it invited recurring shutdown showdowns and deferred hard choices into an unstable post-transition period. The concrete actions traced in reporting — pushing a short-term funding timeline, seeking conference on select bills, and scrapping the omnibus with disaster relief and extenders — combine into a single throughline: Johnson insisted on controlling the process and timing of spending decisions rather than advancing a stable, bipartisan funding package loaded with riders [1] [2] [3]. That procedural insistence shaped what riders even made it into play and explains why contemporary coverage characterizes his late‑2024 and early‑2025 posture as strategic about leverage more than a list of demanded policy riders.