House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, said he hadn’t made any progress with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., in resolving their differences on a spending bill to avert a government shutdown and provide continued disaster relief to communities ravaged by hurricanes and floods.
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“I had a conversation with the Senate majority leader,” Boehner said at a press conference this morning. “There wasn’t much progress made.”
In the wee hours of the morning, the House passed a spending measure that would keep the government and the Federal Emergency Management Agency funded, while offsetting the cost of disaster relief, including with cuts to the loan program that helped finance bankrupt solar panel maker Solyndra.
The Senate is in the process of tabling the measure.
Boehner said that the House-passed bill met the understanding that existed between he and Reid, and that the bill was only being held up due to politics. He said without action, FEMA could run out of money for disaster relief as soon as Monday.
Democrats have rejected the idea of finding offsets to pay for the disaster relief.
“Harry Reid is arguing with himself,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said. “This is why people don’t like Washington.”
The House of Representatives was supposed to go into recess at the end of today, but Cantor wouldn’t say whether that’s still going to happen.
