Shutdown looms as US House Republicans again block own spending bill
By David Morgan and Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy's attempt to restart his stalled spending agenda failed on Thursday when Republicans for a third time blocked a procedural vote on defense spending, raising the risk of a government shutdown in just 10 days.
The House of Representatives voted 216-212 against beginning debate on an $886 billion defense appropriations bill, with five hardline conservative Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the measure.
It represented a setback for McCarthy the morning after his fractious 221-212 majority met for 2-1/2 hours seeking common ground on legislation to avert the fourth government shutdown in a decade beginning Oct. 1.
As the vote failed, McCarthy told reporters that he will pursue the «same strategy I had from January: just keep working; never give up.»
Federal agencies will begin to shut down on Oct. 1 unless Congress passes either a short-term continuing resolution, known as a CR, or a full-year funding bill. So far House Republicans have failed to unify around either possibility, and the ideas they have considered have only Republican support, making them unlikely to win support in the Democratic-majority Senate or be signed into law by President Joe Biden.
«Instead of decreasing the chance of a shutdown, Speaker McCarthy is actually increasing it by wasting time on extremist proposals that cannot become law in the Senate,» top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said.
The defense bill had been scheduled for a five-minute vote that Republicans kept open for over a half hour in a vain hope of winning additional votes. The defense bill also failed in a similar vote on Tuesday and had to be pulled from consideration earlier this month, all
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