Senate rejects the House stop-gap spending bill. Is a government shutdown avoidable?

Christian Science Monitor

The Senate has voted to reject the temporary spending bill passed by the House late last night.

With near permanent brinksmanship the new normal, Congress headed into votes Friday to try to avert a government shutdown that is slated to occur on Oct. 1 if a continuing resolution bill is not passed.

In a surprise late night victory Thursday, House Republican leaders narrowly passed a stop-gap spending bill to fund government through Nov. 18. The measure now heads to the Senate, where majority leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada has already declared it to be dead on arrival.

None of this was expected to be controversial. Congress last month voted on a funding level for the new fiscal year as part of a deal to raise the national debt limit. The continuing resolution (CR) that GOP leaders brought to the floor on Wednesday set a rate of spending for fiscal year 2012 consistent with that agreement.

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But House Republicans opposed to the debt-ceiling deal saw the CR vote as a fresh opportunity to make a stand. Conservatives said that the $1.043 trillion spending level for fiscal year 2012 – as mandated in the debt-limit deal – was too high.

At the same time, House Democratic leaders, who had expressed support for the bill earlier this week, reversed course and called on Democrats to vote it down. Democrats opposed GOP calls for $1 billion in disaster funding for the balance of fiscal 2011 be offset by a $1.5 billion cut to a loan guarantee program for the production of fuel-efficient vehicles.

Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi dubbed the proposed cut “a job destroyer.”

After Wednesday’s defeat, Boehner warned GOP naysayers that if they didn’t support the stop-gap funding measure, he would have to reach out to Democrats – a deal sure to involve even more spending.

Then over night Thursday, the Republican's stop-gap spending bill finally passed, about 30 hours after rejecting a nearly identical version of the legislation. It passed 219 to 203.

But a stalemate still looms. The legislation is not an honest effort at compromise, Senator Reid said in a statement on Thursday. “It will be rejected by the Senate.”

Both the House and Senate had planned a recess beginning Friday, but a standoff over this issue could keep Congress in session through the weekend. Reid says that the Senate is prepared to stay into next week to resolve the issue. House Speaker John Boehner called on the Senate to “pass it without delay.”