Republican opponents of the latest CR, many of them with strong Tea Party roots, expressed frustration with the bill’s $6 billion in cuts, which they said was too little. They also criticized the absence of language defunding the new healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, which GOP leaders kept out of the bill to ease Senate passage.

The Americano

Despite growing opposition from conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats, the House of Representatives Tuesday approved a three week Continuing Resolution to prevent a government shutdown for another three weeks.

The vote was 271 in favor and 158 against. Fifty four Republicans voted against the measure presented and supported by GOP majority leaders in the House even though it cut another $6 billion from the budget. This is the second short-term measure brought up in the last two weeks to prevent the government from closing down. It now goes to the Senate, where it could be approved Wednesday.

According to The Hill, the vote is an indication that President Barack Obama and GOP leaders have a small and rapidly closing window of time to reach an agreement to fund the government for the rest of the fiscal year.

Democrats in the House began to blame Republicans for their inability to pass a budget for the FY that ends September 30. Republicans, in turn, reminded Democrats that when they controlled both chambers in Congress and the White House in 2010, for the first time in history they had not even managed to present a budget proposal for a vote.

Pressure on the House GOP leaders has been growing steadily. Less than two weeks ago only six Republicans had voted against the first two week CR. The number grew to 54 this time around, and Republicans needed 29 Democratic votes to pass the measure Tuesday.

The Hill said the voting suggested that there is no guarantee GOP leaders will be able to push another short-term measure through the lower chamber. Growing opposition against these emergency stop-gap spending measures was also growing among Democrats, who have had to swallow a $2 billion dollar budget cut for each week they have extended government operations.

GOP leaders said that at this rate they would be cutting $100 billion from the budget in a year. Nobody believed the short-term budget extensions could continue to be approved indefinitely, however.

Republican opponents of the latest CR, many of them with strong Tea Party roots, expressed frustration with the bill’s $6 billion in cuts, which they said was too little. They also criticized the absence of language defunding the new healthcare law and Planned Parenthood, which GOP leaders kept out of the bill to ease Senate passage.

According to The Hill, Democrats took notice of the split in Republican ranks and urged Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), to distance himself from Tea Party conservatives and forge a compromise between centrist Republicans and Democrats.

They argued the divergence of views made the GOP’s negotiating position weaker.

Republicans shot back that the defections are a display of strength that enhances the GOP’s hand in negotiations with Senate Democrats on a longer-term bill by showing the backbone of its conservative wing.

“I think this is tremendous leverage for leadership,” said conservative Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), who voted against the measure. “Now, the [majority] leader and the Speaker have said we have taken this as far as we can go, and our members are not going to take it further unless we can get something.”

The Hill added that King insisted that conservative Republicans were writing their leaders to demand that the next measure include language defunding the healthcare law.

GOP leaders said they had gone as far as they could go without a serious proposal from the White House, arguing that they could not continue to negotiate without the other side offering something tangible.

The Americano/Agencies

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