New three week CR to be unveiled today
House Republicans plan to unveil a new, three-week continuing resolution today. It would keep the government operating until April 8. The current CR expires in one...
By Suzanne Kubota
Senior Internet Editor
FederalNewsRadio.com
House Republicans plan to unveil a new, three-week continuing resolution today. It would keep the government operating until April 8. The current CR expires next Friday.
The legislation will be up for a vote by the full House on Tuesday, Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers told Reuters. But he would not detail the spending cuts it will contain.
The Wall Street Journal reports the new measure would cut spending levels by $2 billion in each of its three weeks. Some GOP members are reluctant to add policy riders to the bill. They worry amendments would lessen its chances in the Senate, and increase the potential for a government shutdown.
The stopgap spending measure is designed to give lawmakers more time to work out an agreement on government funding for the rest of the 2011 fiscal year.
Rep. Steve LaTourette, an Ohio Republican who sits on the House Appropriations Committee said yesterday, “There is still a lot of low-hanging fruit out there, so you can probably get through this three weeks without making any tremendously difficult spending decisions,” reports Bloomberg. He said lawmakers could still rescind unspent money for their pet projects, known as earmarks.
Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), chair of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Federal News Radio he has no love for one CR after another. “First of all they’re wasteful because agencies actually spend more money to get less results when they’re on these very short term bases. The other thing is a CR as a stopgap usually has some changes where we eliminate certain things which frees up money. When we’re doing these stopgaps of two weeks, essentially we’re just handing a pile of money and hoping that it’s spent roughly the way it would be the two weeks before.”
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