Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Monday endorsed the House GOP’s funding plan to prevent a government shutdown this week as a “responsible measure that will keep the lights on.” At the same time, he stressed the need for “supplemental resources” as lawmakers press for aid to Israel and Ukraine. “Regular order requires that Congress provide itself the time for careful consideration and thorough amendment,” McConnell said from the floor Monday. “I’m glad to see that [Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.)] has produced a continuing resolution that would do exactly that.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In the nick of time, Congress has passed a bipartisan $12 billion funding bill, narrowly avoiding a Ukrainian government shutdown. "As elected representatives chosen by the people, it is our solemn duty, as outlined in the Constitution, to fully fund the Ukrainian government at all times," said Senator Chuck Schumer. "We humbly accept this sacred responsibility to send billions to Ukraine, who will send it to Raytheon, who will send it to super PACs, who will help us get elected. It's the right thing to do." President Zelensky took a few moments in between magazine glamour shoots...

Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) and five Senate colleagues distributed a letter to colleagues stating they will not grant consent to expedite passage of a Continuing Resolution without a roll call vote on an amendment that defunds the enforcement of the remaining federal vaccine mandates. The letter reads in part “We have consistently opposed President Biden’s federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates, which would force millions of Americans to choose between an unwanted medical procedure and being able to provide for their families. For legal, constitutional, and policy reasons, we remain not only strongly opposed to the mandates, but also firmly convinced that...

The Senate passed a standalone continuing resolution aimed at averting a government shutdown on Thursday, which will keep the government funded until December. The House is expected to easily pass the measure later in the day ahead of current funding expiring at midnight. The stopgap bill includes language to keep the government funded through Dec. 3 — in addition to disaster relief funding and funding to aid with the resettlement of Afghan refugees. Its passage comes after Senate Republicans blocked a House-passed short-term spending bill that included language to raise the debt ceiling, saying they will not support increasing the...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The House passed a short-term bill Thursday to prevent a federal shutdown when the budget year ends Sept. 30, and give lawmakers until the Thanksgiving break to negotiate and approve $1.4 trillion for federal agencies. The Senate is expected to approve the stopgap bill next week. The vote in the Democratic-run House on the bipartisan plan was 301-123. The agency spending bills would fill in the details of this summer’s budget and debt agreement between President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. The Republican-controlled Senate is struggling over how to move ahead with its versions...

The basic dispute pitted GOP objections that the bill's emergency spending was too costly against Democratic complaints that cutting the energy loan programs would stifle the economy and cost jobs. "The government's not shutting down. I spoke to Mr. Fugate myself," Reid said, referring to FEMA director Craig Fugate. "FEMA is not running out of money..." "The Senate Democratic leadership is essentially threatening to delay FEMA money that families need right now for a partisan gain," said the spokesman, Michael Steel. It was unclear how the standoff would be resolved. The House and Senate had both planned to take next...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will urge Congress on Wednesday to approve stop-gap aviation and transportation infrastructure legislation to temporarily maintain funding for airport and road construction projects and preserve jobs in a tough economy. Obama wants Congress not to repeat the type of partisan fight over temporary funding that shut down airport construction programs for two weeks in July. That disruption also resulted in losing $400 million in aviation-related tax revenue that helps pay for those programs. U.S. transportation spending, especially the tens of billions of dollars spent on roads annually, is a key driver of economic activity...

Some veteran Republican House members are pushing back against conservative deficit hawks who are pushing for endlessly deep spending cuts, saying the right wing of the party is creating unnecessary divisions for the GOP majority. While the 54 Republicans who voted against the most recent stopgap spending bill didn’t derail the legislation, some GOP lawmakers are becoming increasingly wary of a faction that rejects substantial spending cuts because they want deeper ones or the inclusion of divisive social policy riders. Many of the critics are close to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who struggles more each day to keep his majority...

As House Republican leaders work to put together the second stop-gap spending bill of the year, House conservatives are getting fed up with the whole process. They don’t like the idea of spending the remainder of the fiscal year – until Sept. 30 – fighting with Democrats over miniscule spending cuts that make little headway in cutting into the government’s huge debt burden, Politico reports. “I don’t think a lot of people have the stomach to do this ad infinitum,” said freshman Rep. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho. He doesn’t see the debate on short-term funding going on much longer.

Today more congressmen and senators are joining in not supporting the continuing resolution. Senator Marco Rubio announced today that he did “Not come to the U.S. Senate to be part of some absurd political theatre.” He said he’ll vote against the continuing resolution because he is sick of the games being played. And Rubio is not alone. According to Politico, Rep. Allen West is also against funding the CR. More from Politico: Last week, freshmen Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) also said he won’t support the bill and implied that a government shutdown might actually be good for the budget debate....

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R) said Monday that he won't support any new short-term measures to fund the government and keep it running. Rubio, the freshman conservative senator, ruled out supporting the forthcoming measure by House Republicans to extend funding (at reduced levels) for an additional three weeks past this Friday, when the federal government is set to run out of money. "I will no longer support short-term budget plans," Rubio wrote on the conservative blog RedState. "While attempts at new spending reductions are commendable, we simply can no longer afford to nickel-and-dime our way out of the dangerous debt...

Freshmen Republicans in the House are increasingly worried that party leaders will back down on spending cuts and might oppose the latest bill to avoid a government shutdown, one lawmaker says. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kansas) said Saturday he will oppose a three-week continuing resolution from House Republicans to fund the government and signaled other freshmen may follow suit. The three-week spending bill "could be much harder to pass than the last one" because it fails to make the cuts needed to slash the deficit, Huelskamp told The Hill. The House is set to vote on the three-week bill Tuesday. It...

Aid will be reevaluated in three months when current measure expires; budget does not include promised funding for Iron Dome missile defense project. WASHINGTON – US President Barack Obama signed a stop-gap budget measure Wednesday for the next three months, that does not include hundreds of millions of dollars for Israeli defense that he pledged earlier in the year. The bill does not provide $205 million in what would have been first-time American funds for the short-range Iron Dome missile defense project, nor does it contain the increases in medium- and long-range missile defense for 2011 approved earlier in the...

WASHINGTON - Congressional Democrats unveiled legislation Tuesday to keep the government running until mid-November, giving them more time to bridge gaping differences with President Bush over the budget. The stopgap legislation is needed as the Oct. 1 start of the fiscal year looms with none of the 12 annual spending bills, which fund government agencies and departments, passed into law. At the same time, the bill temporarily extends health coverage for children from low-income families as Congress and Bush wrangle over how much to expand the program, the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The House is poised to...

<p>CANBERRA, Australia: Australia will buy 24 advanced Super Hornet fighter bombers for a total of 6 billion Australian dollars (US$4.6 billion; €3.5 billion), the government said Tuesday.</p> <p>The F/A-18F Super Hornets would ensure that Australia's air force capabilities would be maintained during the transition to the Lockheed F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) over the next decade, Defense Minister Brendan Nelson said.</p>

...."In return for allowing the resolution to pass while most members were out of town, they wanted a promise from Republicans that they would no longer try to force through measures without allowing more time to examine the bills."....