House Passes $6 Billion Cut While Waiting For Senate To Negotiate

By Mario Trujillo

UPDATE (3:32 p.m.): The House passed the spending bill (H.J. Res. 48), 271-158. A total of 85 Democrats crossed over to support the bill while 54 Republicans voted against it. 

The House will move to pass another extension to fund the government on Tuesday, cutting an additional $6 billion in spending, House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said. 

Boehner told reporters following a House Republican Conference meeting that he is confident that the new continuing resolution, which keeps the government running for an additional three weeks, will pass the full House. However, he was mum when asked whether it enjoys the full support of the GOP conference. The current continuing resolution expires on Friday.

Boehner said he is waiting on the Senate to pass some sort of long term spending bill for 2011 so that honest negotiations can begin. Acknowledging that some in his caucus want to cut more, Boehner said it is important to know where the Senate stands in the debate.

“I want to get the long term continuing resolution over as soon as possible, but I’m not going to negotiate with myself,” Boehner said.

The House passed a bill to fund the government through September that would cut $61 billion from current spending levels. The Senate rejected that bill last Thursday. The upper chamber also rejected an alternate proposal that would’ve cut $6.5 billion through September, nearly the same amount that the House will vote to cut in the next three weeks. The Republican bill received more votes in the Senate than did the Democrats’ counter proposal.

Boehner said that he had not talked with President Obama in a few weeks, but noted that the administration officials had been working with him. He said is confident that a long term spending bill can be hammered out “soon.” On the other hand, House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) continued to criticized Vice President Joe Biden for being absent from negotiations last week.

“After that vote, the President calls and sends the Vice President down,” McCarthy said. “The Vice President has one meeting then leaves the country when the government is only funded for two weeks…the majority party in the Senate, the Democrats, and the President have to show some leadership.”

Biden and his wife spent all of last week on a state visit to Russia, Finland and Moldvova.