The new speaker has 3 ideas to avert a government shutdown. 2 make a stoppage more likely.

House Speaker Mike Johnson is currently toggling between different ideas when it comes to how he will approach a looming government shutdown deadline.

Whatever strategy he ultimately picks will have significant implications on the chances of a shutdown actually happening in just 11 days.

The approaches that Johnson has taken under consideration include a "clean" government funding bill that would be all but guaranteed to sail to President Biden’s desk. But his other ideas — pairing a funding bill with immigration measures or a novel "laddered" bill — would likely be blocked by Democrats and make a shutdown much more likely.

Johnson is set to solicit input in a closed-door House GOP meeting Tuesday where Republicans are expected to hash out their plans.

Johnson has been circumspect so far but has acknowledged that some type of short-term solution will be needed as Congress works through its larger appropriations process.

"We are running out of time [and] may not get this done by November 17," he said in a press conference last week.

Here’s how the various temporary approaches could play out as Washington grapples with yet another wave of debt brinkmanship.

A 'clean CR' to push the problem to 2024

Clearly, the path of least resistance would be a simple funding bill to push the coming Nov. 17 deadline into next year without any strings attached.

Johnson has personally signaled an openness to this approach and even campaigned on it during his run for speaker. His office distributed a document at the time that laid out a plan for a short-term measure to keep the government operating into 2024 without outlining any policy demands he wanted in return.

"I would propose a measure that expires on January 15 or April 15," he wrote in his letter to colleagues. Last week, he reiterated that plan and zeroed in on Jan. 15 as a likely deadline as his "initial idea [to] get us beyond the Christmas rush."

The question is whether Johnson will push hard for this bipartisan approach or whether hard-right Republicans will try to block him.

It’s worth noting what happened to then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy after he pushed through a government funding bill with Democratic support in September. He was promptly ousted by far-right Republicans over that decision and other issues.

It's less likely that House Republicans would attempt a repeat for Johnson, at least immediately.

Two approaches demanding concessions — and guaranteed Democratic opposition

Two other approaches on the table for Johnson would keep the government open but only in return for Republican priorities that Democrats would almost surely reject.

One approach being discussed would try to pair government funding with GOP wins on the issue of immigration. H.R. 2 is a far-reaching GOP immigration bill that would do things like reinstate the controversial Trump-era "Remain in Mexico" policies. It’s a bill that some in Johnson's caucus want to attach as a condition of keeping the government open through the holidays.

But H.R. 2 has already been ruled out by the Democratic-controlled Senate. Immigration is currently the topic of bipartisan Senate negotiations, with even some Republicans involved in that effort likely to reject the idea of simply accepting a House bill while they are in the middle of a search for bipartisan compromise.

Johnson could also demand other policy concessions — such as cutting federal spending in return for a two-month stopgap — but that is almost certain to be rejected by Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in the Senate.

A third possible approach is something called a "laddered CR" that was first reportedly floated by Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.). The idea here is to extend government funding for different agencies for different periods of time.

How exactly this ladder would work remains unclear but such a plan would seem to allow lawmakers to favor certain parts of a government over others — perhaps giving the Pentagon a higher rung and freeing enlistees from shutdown worries while keeping the threat of shutdown front and center for other areas of government.

Johnson told reporters at a press conference last week he was considering the approach but he hasn’t committed.

“I’ll unpack for you what that means here in the coming days,” Johnson said at the time.

Either way, it’s another approach almost certain to be rejected out of hand by Democrats.

What both sides seem to agree on is that the main attraction — when it comes to government funding fights at least — awaits in the new year. That's when lawmakers aim to complete the larger appropriations process that would keep the government open for the entire fiscal year — or perhaps plunge it into an extended shutdown.

It remains to be seen how Johnson — who has been in the speaker's chair less than two weeks — will approach the coming fights when it gets down to details. But he has promised he's ready for battle at some point.

"We are here to change the environment, to change the paradigm, the way Washington thinks," Johnson said recently.

Ben Werschkul is a Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.

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