A Republican aide says the House of Representatives will continue to move forward on passing a long-term omnibus spending bill in the upcoming lame duck session of Congress. While some conservatives in both the House and Senate have suggested the House pass a short-term continuing resoution to fund the government until after the next Congress arrives in January, the aide said such a move is “off the table.”
The current continuing resolution funds the federal government through December 10, expiring at midnight on December 11. Lawmakers in both the House and the Senate began formally meeting Tuesday to negotiate the details of the omnibus spending bill, with an expectation the bill would go to the House floor for a vote in early December.
House majority leader Kevin McCarthy has siad he prefers passing a long-term spending bill for all or most of the next fiscal year. “If we are fortunate to have both majorities, take away any cliff you can have hanging out there,” McCarthy told Politico last month. “Why put cliffs up that hold us back from doing bigger policy?”
“I think in general, leadership on both sides of the aisle want to clear the deck on this year’s appropriations items,” said the House GOP aide.
But some Republicans have argued against a long-term spending bill, instead arguing that Congress should pass a short-term bill to fund the government through early next year, after the Republicans have control of both the House and Senate. Conservatives argue that if President Obama follows through on a promise to act on immigration through an executive order, Congress should have the ability to withhold funding for what many Republicans would view as an unconstitutional act.
That’s the idea behind the proposal from Matt Salmon, an Arizona congressman who National Review reports has written a letter to Rogers and the Democratic ranking member on the committee Nita Lowey.
“We respectfully request that as you work to finalize the year-end funding legislation that language be included in all relevant appropriations legislation for FY 2015 to prohibit the use of funds by the administration for the implementation of current or future executive actions that would create additional work permits and green cards outside of the scope prescribed by Congress,” Salmon writes in the letter.
Alabama senator Jeff Sessions and Utah senator Mike Lee have also made the case for a short-term CR.
