After a difficult first year on the job that included intraparty fighting on everything from government funding to foreign military aid to tax reform, Speaker Johnson is getting his first real taste of the hell that awaits him in January. His long-negotiated bipartisan government funding deal is dead thanks to the narrow House majority he holds and the outside agitation of one of the Trump campaign’s biggest donors.

Welcome to Washington, where Mr. Johnson’s strife began in earnest on Tuesday night, when House Republican leadership unveiled a government spending plan that would keep the lights on through mid-March. The legislation was negotiated between Democratic Senate leadership and Republican House leadership over the course of weeks, but thanks to the public pressure campaign from billionaire Elon Musk, the government is poised to shut down on Friday at midnight. 

GOP leaders had considered a simple extension of current funding levels through the spring, though with so many members retiring this year and so much last-minute lobbying for legislation that was considered this past Congress, Mr. Johnson was forced to add some pricey items to the list: disaster relief funds, additional money for farmers, and a member and staff pay increase, among other things. In total, this legislation alone will cost just under $400 billion between now and March. 

The backlash was instant. As always, conservative members of the House and Senate railed against the spending additions and the way in which the more than 1,500 page bill was dropped on members on Tuesday night before. The most important blowback came, though, from the co-commissioners of the government efficiency board, Mr. Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, posting constantly on Wednesday about how bad the bill was.