WASHINGTON (AP) — With a shutdown clock ticking toward a midnight Friday deadline, House Republican leaders struggled on Wednesday to unite the GOP rank and file behind a must-pass spending bill.
Although a major obstacle evaporated after key GOP senators dropped a demand to add health insurance subsidies for the poor, a number of defense hawks offered resistance to a plan by GOP leaders to punt a guns-versus-butter battle with Democrats into the new year.
There’s still plenty of time to avert a politically debilitating government shutdown, which would detract from the party’s success this week in muscling through their landmark tax bill.
Some lawmakers from hurricane-hit states also worried that an $81 billion disaster aid bill was at risk of getting left behind in the rush to exit Washington for the holidays.
Lawmakers said the GOP vote-counting team would assess support for the plan and GOP leaders would set a course of action from there.
Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said “there’s no specific direction right now” about the path forward. He spoke after an hourlong closed-door meeting of Republicans in the Capitol basement.
Full Story: AP News