In the shadow of last week’s mass shooting in California, the House used a near-party line vote of 242-173 to turn aside an effort by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to hold an immediate vote on the legislation.
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Negotiators crafting a massive spending bill are still debating the final contours of a deal, so the House on Friday sent a bill to President Barack Obama giving congressional leaders until Wednesday night.
Ryan announced that the House will pass a short-term bill to prevent the government from shutting down this weekend as talks on a sweeping $1.1 trillion governmentwide spending bill continue slowly.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said the House will pass a short term funding bill this week to avoid a government shutdown, as negotiations appear stalled on a year-long measure and the clock ticks toward Friday’s deadline.
GOP lawmakers also attributed the lessened intensity to new Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., who replaced the ousted John Boehner, R-Ohio, this fall. The Senate passed the legislation by voice vote on Thursday. He said Republicans meant to finish the spending bill early next week.
“I don’t think that we have the time to wait until a nominee arrives, which could be as late as I don’t know June or July, to then come up with an agenda to show the country who we are and what we believe in”, he said.
“At this point, it is unfortunately necessary for us to have a little more time to complete our negotiations”, Rogers said.
At the same time, the No. 2 in the House of Representatives, California Republican Kevin McCarthy, said that lawmakers will not be in session until December 15, as was planned before the extension of the negotiations was agreed upon.
TAX LEGISLATION: Entwined with the spending measure is a separate bill that would renew around 50 expiring tax breaks for individuals and businesses. “That’s why I’m not disappointed very much”, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada remarked as he headed into a midafternoon meeting with his Republican counterpart, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Those included Republican proposals to lift a ban on crude oil exports and tighten screening of Syrians seeking refuge in the United States. House Republicans introduced the two year package, but GOP aides say it’s simply a placeholder, and that talks are still proceeding on the broader legislation.
But lawmakers have been unable to reach agreement on a number of policy “riders” some lawmakers would like to add to the bill.
There’s also support among Democrats and Republicans for a two-year delay in implementation of a 40 percent excise tax on higher premium health insurance plans, a key pillar of Obama’s 2010 health care law that is strongly opposed by his labor union allies.
Just days after attacks in which Islamic State group-affiliated terrorists killed 130 people in France, the House passed a bill that would severely restrict the resettlement of Syrian refugees in the US amid concerns that at least one of the attackers had entered Europe posing as a refugee on a Syrian passport.
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“They got more money, but they are not willing to consider any of our policy riders”, Flores said, referring to Democrats, saying, “that’s not negotiating in good faith”.
