McCarthy rejects Senate spending bill while scrambling for a House plan that averts a shutdown

abcnews.go.com:

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is digging in on his refusal to take up Senate legislation designed to keep the federal government fully running beyond midnight Saturday

WASHINGTON — A government shutdown appeared all but inevitable as House Speaker Kevin McCarthy dug in Thursday, vowing he will not take up Senate legislation designed to keep the federal government fully running despite House Republicans' struggle to unite around an alternative.

Congress is at an impasse just days before a disruptive federal shutdown that would halt paychecks for many of the federal government's roughly 2 million employees, as well as 2 million active-duty military troops and reservists, furlough many of those workers and curtail government services.

But the House and Senate are pursuing different paths to avert those consequences even though time is running out before government funding expires after midnight on Saturday.

“I still got time. I’ve got time to do other things,” McCarthy told reporters Thursday evening at the Capitol, adding, “At the end of the day, we’ll get it all done.”

The Senate is working toward passage of a bipartisan measure that would fund the government until Nov. 17 as longer-term negotiations continue, while also providing $6 billion for Ukraine and $6 billion for U.S. disaster relief.

The House, meanwhile, took up four of the dozen annual spending bills that fund federal agencies. Republicans were heartened as they passed three bills that would fund the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security and State Department, though the fourth bill to fund federal agriculture programs failed.

In one sign of deepening resistance to assisting Ukraine, more than half the House Republicans voted against providing