Congress Must Pass Stopgap To Keep Government Open

[Purveyor]

Source: Associated Press

(03-06) 08:29 PST WASHINGTON, (AP) --

With a $410 billion catchall spending bill stalled in the Senate and a midnight deadline looming, Congress began rushing through stopgap legislation Friday to keep the government running for another five days.

On Thursday night, Republicans in the Senate unexpectedly put the brakes on the sweeping measure that would finance most government agencies and also includes some big spending increases and lawmakers' pet projects.

With most Republicans denouncing the bill as too costly and a handful of Democrats opposing it as well, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., called off a key procedural vote — just one vote short of the 60 needed to send the measure to the White House.

Several Republicans who support the bill withheld their support of the procedural vote in order to force Reid to allow other Republicans to offer amendments, including ones to extend a local school voucher program in Washington, D.C., and to require lawmakers to approve their pay hikes instead of getting an automatic cost-of-living raise every year.

With the vote postponed until at least Monday, both the House and Senate need to pass a stopgap spending measure by midnight Friday to prevent a shutdown of most domestic agencies. Midnight is when a temporary law that keeps the government in business, mostly at 2008 spending levels, expires. The House began debating the temporary measure Friday morning, to be followed by the Senate.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/03/03/national/w092927S75.DTL

[midnight]

1. Why do republicans do their destruction at night?

Thursday night, Republicans in the Senate unexpectedly put the brakes on the sweeping measure that would finance most government agencies and also includes some big spending increases and lawmakers' pet projects.

[HopeHoops]

2. Isn't it funny that the "blank check" Republicans of the Bush years are reborn money hawks?

Might have something to do with their Oxy Moron leader ordering them to make Obama fail, ya think?