Rep. Patrick McHenry thinks House Speaker Mike Johnson needs to do a better job when it comes to getting bills passed in the lower chamber to avoid the impending partial government shutdown.
Mr. McHenry, who served as speaker pro tempore in October after former Rep. Kevin McCarthy, California Republican, was ousted as speaker, told CNN’s Manu Raju that Congress can avoid the shutdown, “but it’s time to get on with the deal rather than dither.”
When asked if the problem lies with Mr. Johnson being too indecisive, the North Carolina Republican said, “We need the speaker to be better. As a House Republican, I want him to succeed.”
“We need to get into the mode of getting things done, not punting things and pushing it off in the future,” Mr. McHenry said.
Mr. Johnson faces many of the issues that Mr. McCarthy did as speaker, especially finding a way to get bills passed with the Democrats while not ruffling the feathers of conservatives.
The Louisiana Republican called the Senate’s first bipartisan aid package dead on arrival because it didn’t do enough to secure the border and has said he’s not rushing into deciding how to handle the new foreign aid bill that passed the Senate last week that would send money to Ukraine and Israel but doesn’t include border funding.
Congress has until Friday to stop a partial government shutdown. The departments of Agriculture, Energy, Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, and Veterans Affairs are on a list to be funded.
Mr. Johnson told his fellow GOP lawmakers in a Friday call not to expect “home runs and grand slams” with the final bills.
“But we will be able to secure a number of policy victories, both in bill text and report language, or other provisions and cuts that severely undermine the administration’s programs and objectives,” he said in the call, according to The Hill. “These bills will be littered with singles and doubles that we should be proud of, especially in our small majority.”
An additional eight spending bills expire on March 8.