By Mario Trujillo
The House of Representatives will vote on a one-week extension that cuts an additional $12 billion Thursday, which will garner enough Republican support alone to pass, said House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) at a news conference Wednesday.
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) urged the Senate to approve and the President to sign the resolution that would put off a government shutdown for another week and fund the Defense Department through the end of the year. Both chambers have already passed two extensions to the spending resolution this year, cutting a combined $10 billion from current spending levels.
It is unlikely the Senate or White House will approve the resolution. President Obama said Tuesday that he would be opposed to another short-term extension unless it was used to hammer out the details of a full spending bill.
McCarthy was confident the one-week extension would gain support of House Republicans even though the last spending vote survived the House only with Democratic support.
Negotiations for a long-term spending bill have made progress, but a deal hasn’t been reached by “a long shot,” said Boehner. He criticized the President for failing to show leadership throughout these budget negotiations and added that the Republican-led House is looking for the largest cuts possible.
Senate Democrats and the White House agreed to a cut of $33 billion, more than half of the $61 billion that was originally proposed by the House.
Last week, Vice President Joe Biden said both sides had found consensus on $33 billion in cuts and it was just a matter of where those reductions would come from. Yesterday, Boehner again contested that statement, saying no agreement was ever reached. Boehner also continued to push for policy riders that include restrictions on the EPA and cuts to Planned Parenthood.
“Some folks are trying to inject politics in what should be a simple debate about how to pay our bills,” Obama said at a town hall in Fairless Hills, Pa. “They’re stuffing all kinds of issues in there; abortion, the environment, healthcare. There are times to have those discussions but that time is not now, right now we need to just make sure we pay our bills and that the government stays open.”