House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif., center, accompanied by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, right, walks to the House to vote on a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown, Wednesday, September 30, 2015, on Capitol Hill in Washington.
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With just hours to a midnight deadline, a divided Congress headed toward approving a temporary spending bill late Wednesday to keep the government open.
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Mr Boehner faced political backlash from the most conservative Republicans for bringing a bill to the floor that retained funding for Planned Parenthood and could only pass with the help of Democrats. The Senate ended debate on the so-called clean continuing resolution Monday after an unsuccessful Republican effort last week to pass a bill that would have funded the government but defunded Planned Parenthood. Sen.
Congressional Democrats and Obama administration officials said they were eager to begin negotiations with Republicans on a longer-term spending measure.
The 78-20 Senate tally represented a vote of confidence for an approach engineered by top GOP leaders determined to avoid a government shutdown.
She continued by noting that the House Republican budget cut Title X funding and also slashed by 80 percent money that goes toward a teen-pregnancy protection program, “which means there’s no comprehensive sex education, there’s no sex education and yet there’s no abortion“, Schakowsky said. The measure would authorize $612 billion in defense spending, including $90 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), or war funds.
“Do you know truly what’s going on behind closed doors or are you still believing the deception that all Planned Parenthood does is provide women’s health?”
While their defund strategy failed, hard-core conservatives achieved what many in their camp consider a crucial victory: the announced resignation of House Speaker John Boehner, who has been dogged for years by a far-right flank that demands more aggressively conservative action. Let’s jump into budget negotiations with the White House and if we don’t get our way, we can shutter the government come December 11.
The Pentagon and domestic agencies all are still operating under automatic curbs that would effectively freeze their spending at current levels.
Republican leaders allowed separate vote on a measure that would require the House Clerk to attach the defunding language to the spending bill.
“My friend, the Republican leader, is reciting facts that are not real“, Mr. Reid, Nevada Democrat, said. A few Republicans want to defund the nonprofit because of controversial videos that were released over the summer, which purportedly show Planned Parenthood selling organs for profit.
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JUDY WOODRUFF: For the first time, the head of Planned Parenthood, Cecile Richards, faced her Republican critics in Congress today.
