Ken Buck says House facing ‘perfect storm’ over spending, Biden impeachment 

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said Sunday there was a “perfect storm” brewing in the House as the deadline to fund the government quickly approaches and the push for an impeachment inquiry by some conservative lawmakers into President Biden is reaching its boiling point.

“I think there’s a perfect storm brewing in the House in the near future, in September,” Buck said in an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.” 

“On the one hand, we’ve got to pass a continuing resolution. We also have the impeachment issue. And we also have members of the House, led by my good friend, [Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas)], who are concerned about policy issues,” Buck added. “They want riders in the appropriations bills, amendments in the appropriations bills that guarantee some type of security on our southern border.”

Government funding is set to run out at the end of the fiscal year, on Sept. 30, and a continuing resolution will be necessary to buy lawmakers some time to pass the necessary appropriations bills without a government shutdown. 

While a continuing resolution is a standard step to prevent a government shutdown, a separate push among some far-right members of the House GOP conference has advocated for a vote on an impeachment inquiry into Biden as early as this month. It remains unclear whether they would vote for a continuing resolution without seeing their demands met. 

With only a few votes to spare in the House, without relying on Democrats, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) will have to navigate the demands from his conference while also making good on previous promises he’s made to some factions in exchange for their support.

“So you take those things put together, and Kevin McCarthy, the Speaker, has made promises on each of those issues to different groups,” Buck said. “And now it is all coming due at the same time. It’s going to be very difficult to pass a continuing resolution with Republican votes, only Republican votes.”