◼ House nears passage of GOP spending bill to avert gov't shutdown; Senate Dems will go along - yahoofinance
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican-controlled House is on course to pass legislation cutting federal spending by $4 billion and averting a government shutdown for two weeks. And Senate Democrats say they will go along.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid told reporters he expects the bill to go to President Barack Obama for his signature in the next 48 hours.
The House is acting first, with a vote expected this afternoon.
Passage of the measure will set a two-week time frame for negotiations on a bill to keep the government running through the Sept. 30 end of the fiscal year...
Republicans want to slash more than $60 billion from agency budgets over the coming months as a down payment on larger reductions later in the year, but are settling for just $4 billion in especially easy cuts as the price for the two-week stopgap bill...
The $4 billion would hit some programs that Obama has sought to terminate and others that have billions of dollars set aside for pet projects sought by lawmakers. That money's not needed since Republicans have banned earmarks for at least two years.
Carney also said Obama made a call to House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, to discuss the stopgap legislation.
Earlier on Tuesday, Boehner rebuffed suggestions by the White House and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for a month-long measure.
"If there had been a conversation about this 10 days ago or two days ago, we might have had something to talk about." Boehner said. "But the fact is we were forced to move on our own."
