House Republicans Mull New Proposal

[mystery-ak]

http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/10/01/house-republicans-mull-new-proposal/?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTTopStories



    October 1, 2013, 2:50 PM

House Republicans Mull New Proposal

    By
    Kristina Peterson
   

WASHINGTON—House Republicans are considering a proposal to pass bills funding the government in pieces through mid-December, one day after a budget impasse forced a partial government shutdown.

The proposal by House GOP leaders is being discussed Tuesday with rank-and-file lawmakers. It would fund individual programs or agencies, such as those providing services for veterans or national parks, a House Republican aide said. The narrow spending bills would extend funding at the current sequester levels, around $986 billion on an annual basis, according to the aide.

House Republicans would choose the programs covered by the spending bills, unlike the normal appropriations process that funds the government through an organized set of spending bills covering set areas of government operations. Congress hasn’t approved any routine appropriations bills for fiscal 2014, which began Tuesday.

The plan, designed to show Republicans are trying to find solutions, would do little to ease the deep budget impasse that left lawmakers unable to reach a deal to keep the government funded after they missed the Monday midnight deadline. If embraced by rank and file lawmakers, Republicans could start begin voting on the individual bills quickly, aides said.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether the Senate would consider any of the bills, should the House decided to vote on them.

[Rapunzel]

What is there to mull.. sheesh Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have been telling them for over a week send the bills over piecemeal to keep open Interior, etc...

[mystery-ak]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics-live/liveblog/live-updates-the-shutdown-showdown/?id=fa681f02-a9d7-4aec-9d2f-e4cbe1ec29d7


House GOP will go with Cruz's idea for plan B

Adopting a strategy first suggested by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), House Republicans are pushing a new approach that would break up the federal spending bills into small pieces and move them separately over to the Senate.

According to a senior GOP aide in a closed-door huddle in the Capitol basement, Republicans hope to approve three bills Tuesday that would fund the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Park Service and the District of Columbia. This is an attempt to move the appropriations process through regular order, but Senate Democrats have rejected such a move as too late.

The House votes will be done largely as messaging efforts, as GOP leaders expect to put the bills on what is known as the suspension calendar. Those bills on that legislative calendar are usually noncontroversial (think naming of post offices) and require a two-thirds majority to be approved, with almost no debate beforehand.

Republicans expect Democrats to object to funding those three spending bills, and they will then try to place political blame for national parks and museums being closed on House Democrats.

In rejecting the House’s efforts this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said he would agree to Speaker John A. Boehner’s (R-Ohio) request to have a special committee to hash out the differences in their spending plans once Boehner agrees to the Senate’s plan to re-open the government.

“The government is closed . . . because of the irrationality of what is going on on the other side of the Capitol,” Reid (D-Nev.) said Tuesday morning.
Paul Kane
1:43 pm

 

[happyg]

So now, all of a sudden, Cruz's plan B is viable? LOL!