For the second time this month, Congress is poised to take up a measure that would keep the government running for just a short time while Republicans and Democrats battle over how deeply to cut spending. Their last temporary spending measure passed easily March 1. But this time around, House Republicans may face opposition from their conservative rank-and-file because the latest measure excludes a slew of social policy provisions that strip money from the health care reform law, defund Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio and prohibit the District of Columbia from using local government funds to pay for residents’ abortions, among other things. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers, R-Ky., told The Washington Examiner the new stopgap measure would be free of these extraneous provisions, known as riders, despite the push to include them.
“This short-term bill is for the purpose of giving time to the negotiators,” Rogers said, adding that passage is critical to avoid a government shutdown while negotiations continue.
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But a conservative faction of House Republicans has grown impatient with their leadership over the policy riders. Many of the riders were included in a House-passed bill that would have funded the federal government through the end of the fiscal year and cut $61 billion in spending. But that bill failed to pass the Senate, in part, because of the policy riders, which Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged to block.
“There is a sentiment that we need to start changing policy, not just decreasing spending,” Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., a leader in the conservative Republican Study Committee, told The Examiner.
Some Republicans are pushing to add an additional rider that would prohibit local funds from being used to assist low-income D.C. women seeking abortions.
“It won’t get through the Senate so it’s just political posturing,” Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., said.
Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga., a top member of the House Appropriations Committee, said Republicans should push to include the riders, even in a three-week measure, because he believes Democrats have not been willing to compromise enough on the spending cuts. Any long-term deal, he said, would have to include both cuts and the policy provisions.
“I think if we got a really good package with some riders and some serious spending cuts, that would be sellable and acceptable to our caucus,” Kingston said.
The new spending measure would keep the government funded for three weeks and would slash $6 billion along the way, mostly by eliminating earmarks and programs targeted for reduction by President Obama in his fiscal 2012 spending request.
Republicans have pledged to cut $2 billion per week in order to fulfill a campaign promise to cut $100 billion from Obama’s fiscal 2011 budget request. The fiscal year is nearly half over and the government has been operating on a series of short-term measures since October.
The Republican-led House is expected to take up the new spending measure Tuesday before sending it to the Senate, where Democrats hold the majority.
