McCarthy says House will keep working on spending bill: ‘We’re not leaving this weekend’
Reese Gorman
Video Embed
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) said the House would keep working until they pass a temporary spending bill, even if it means working through the weekend as resistance builds among House Republicans against the stopgap funding measure negotiated by the House Freedom Caucus and the Republican Main Street Caucus.
So far, there are at least 11 Republican holdouts on the continuing resolution, and with McCarthy only able to lose four Republican votes if no Democrats support the bill, it does not look promising for the measure’s passage.
HERE ARE THE HOUSE REPUBLICANS WHO HAVE PLEDGED TO VOTE NO ON STOPGAP SPENDING MEASURE
And on top of the Republican holdouts on the continuing resolution, the bill has virtually no chance of passing the Senate, which is controlled by the Democrats, and being signed into law by President Joe Biden. Despite this, the speaker told reporters on Monday he is “cheerfully persistent” that they will “find a way to get through this.”
“We’re going to bring new ideas up, and we’re going to work until we get this done. We’re not leaving this weekend. We’re going to get through this,” McCarthy said.
McCarthy brushed off the idea that he would need Democratic support to pass this continuing resolution, saying his members need to realize “how do you govern as a majority” and how to achieve the policy outcomes that the conference wants.
“If our conference holds up from me even bringing the bills to the floor, it makes our ability harder to win, to secure our border, to cut the wasteful spending — those are the things I want to achieve,” McCarthy said. “I just keep my head, work through it like we did on every other issue. I know others have always had problems when we brought them, but we will be successful in the end.”
The negotiated 31-day continuing resolution included a number of wins for Republicans. It included the House’s border security legislation they passed earlier this year, along with some other border security provisions, and it cut spending down to the caps set in the bipartisan debt ceiling deal. It also provided no additional Ukraine aid or disaster relief.
But a big holdup is the spending level. The continuing resolution would keep defense and veteran affairs funding at fiscal 2023 levels while other domestic agencies receive an 8% cut.
This would bring spending to $1.59 trillion — the spending level set in the debt ceiling deal signed into law in June.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
But hard-line conservatives have called for spending to be set at $1.471 trillion. Many have also said they needed to see H.R. 2 or other strict border security measures in any continuing resolution for it to receive their support. However, now that some of those measures are in there, some holdouts on the bill remain, making McCarthy’s job tougher.
“It’s hard to pass everything in this place,” McCarthy said. “We started out with a five-seat majority. I got one member who’s now resigned. We got a couple of members who are out as well. Anything we do is pretty tough in life. But you know what? This country is too great and too big to give up. And I’m never going to give up on the country.”