House speaker calls for more federal spending cuts in reconciliation package

WASHINGTON — With 27 days left for congressional lawmakers to agree on a spending bill to avert a federal government shutdown, House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday that the appropriations package needs to cut more spending.

Citing the $37 trillion federal deficit, Johnson said the $1.6 trillion in cuts enacted through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act in July is “not enough.”

“We have to continue to spend more responsibly,” Johnson, R-La., said during the first House GOP news conference since Congress’ monthlong summer recess. “If the government shuts down, it’ll be because congressional Democrats rejected commonsense solutions to fund the government and instead caved to their far-left base.”

He encouraged House Democrats to work with the GOP majority “and think responsibly about how we can spend less than we did last year.”

On Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Democrats are seeking bipartisan common ground to pass the spending bill and avoid a government shutdown, but he insisted that the bill be bipartisan, a product of negotiation and in the best interests of the American people in terms of health, safety, national security and economic wellbeing.

Jeffries said it’s up to the Trump administration and Republicans in the House and Senate to avoid a shutdown.

“As we always are, the House Republicans are committed to keeping the government open,” Johnson said Wednesday. “Unfortunately, it seems like not all the Democrats agree with that, and they’ve begun to apply their government shutdown pressure.”

During a rally on Capitol Hill on Wednesday to “fight for families, reject the cuts,” several Democratic Congress members spoke out against the $1.02 trillion in estimated cuts to federal Medicaid spending to states over the next 10 years through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“As we come up in this continuing resolution fight, all Democrats can’t just be a ‘no,’” Rep. Maxwell Frost, D-Fla., said at the rally. “You have to be a ‘hell no.’ You have to say that we’re not giving you one vote to continue to take away health care from our people. If you want a yes, you better get health care back to the 17 million people who are going to lose it.”