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In other private meetings this week, McCarthy began to float the idea of taking the Senate’s short-term bill, stripping it of provisions the House GOP opposes, then tacking on a House-passed border security bill and sending it back to the Senate. Separately, McCarthy and his allies have continued to encourage their colleagues to pass a 30-day short-term spending bill Friday, which would include border security, in a signal of defiance to the Senate. Exactly what that bill would include remained up in the air Wednesday afternoon.
The different tactics nearly guarantee a government shutdown, unless lawmakers can force some other long-shot solution. The two chambers working in opposition to one another probably won’t have enough time to pass a stopgap spending bill — called a continuing resolution, or CR — before the current funding laws expire at 12:01 a.m. Sunday.
“Speaker McCarthy: The only way — the only way — out of a shutdown is bipartisanship,” Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday in a floor speech. “And by constantly adhering to what the hard right wants, you’re aiming for a shutdown. They want it, you know it, you can stop it. Work in a bipartisan way, like we are in the Senate, and we can avoid harm to tens of millions of Americans.”
In a rare show of unity, his GOP counterpart agreed.
“A vote against a standard short-term funding measure is a vote against paying over a billion dollars in salary for Border Patrol and [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents working to track down lethal fentanyl and contain our open borders,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the Senate floor. “Shutting down the government isn’t an effective way to make a point. Keeping it open is the only way to make a difference on the most important issues we are facing.”
The House was slated to spend Wednesday debating legislation that would cover parts of the government for the whole 2024 fiscal year. The GOP-led chamber passed a procedural vote Tuesday night to advance a bundle of those bills — similar votes had failed earlier this week and last week as McCarthy fends off a rebellion from his right flank.
The Senate moved into debate on its own short-term spending bill, which easily cleared a procedural hurdle of its own Tuesday evening. But that drew GOP objections, too, as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) threatened to slow its passage because he opposes sending more aid to Ukraine.
“I would hope that cooler heads will prevail, but at this point, we have to be prepared for a short term shutdown,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said Tuesday.
The House didn’t yet have a short-term spending bill queued up. But neither chamber is in position to wrap up work before the funding deadline. If government spending isn’t extended, a shutdown would close certain federal agencies, deprive military service members and government employees of paychecks, hamstring crucial antipoverty programs and delay assistance to natural disaster victims.
The Senate’s short-term bill, which drew support from 28 Republicans as well as all present Democrats, would extend federal government funding at current levels until Nov. 17, and includes $6.2 billion in emergency assistance for Ukraine and $6 billion for domestic disaster relief.
The House, if it does consider legislation for a temporary extension, would cut spending by 8 percent for all federal agencies except the Departments of Defense and Veteran’s Affairs. It would package those cuts with a border security bill that House Republicans passed earlier in the year.
“We’ve got a problem, national security problem and an economic problem, particularly with the border. That’s our leverage point,” Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.), an influential member of the hard-line House Freedom Caucus, told reporters Wednesday morning.
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