House Speaker Kevin McCarthy rejected a bipartisan Senate proposal to keep agencies funded through November 17 and instead moved a GOP bill that linked another month of spending with border security.
House conservatives blocked a Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown, dealing House Speaker Kevin McCarthy another defeat with the clock ticking toward the midnight deadline on Saturday when federal agencies run out of money.
The failure is the latest display of the dysfunction that has engulfed Congress in the days and weeks leading up to an increasingly inevitable government shutdown. House Republicans have been mired in internal battles over spending and political tactics that have put them at odds with Democrats and most Republicans in the Senate.
The Senate is working on its own bipartisan bill to avert any shutdown, but still has procedural steps to get through and the chamber may not vote before a shutdown begins.
McCarthy ignored the Senate’s proposal and chose to move ahead on a GOP crafted measure funded agencies through October 31 and included border security provisions that were part of a Republican-passed bill. It also included a provision creating a bipartisan commission to study the national debt.
But going into the vote there were already a block of hardliners who said they wouldn’t approve any short term bill, many of them demanding that Congress complete action on all 12 spending bills.
