House Passes Another Short-Term Spending Bill

UPDATE: The Senate passed the House three-week CR by a vote of 87-13, with nine Republicans and four Democrats opposing. President Obama will sign the CR on Friday. Lawmakers now have until Friday April 8 to reach an agreement on funding for the rest of the fiscal year.

Today, the House of Representatives passed another short-term spending resolution in order to fund the federal government for 3 more weeks. Current funding for the government expires this Friday, March 18. This resolution, which would continue funding through April 8, would cut $6 billion from current levels and would be the sixth temporary funding bill this year if enacted. What a broken budget process.

The proposal passed the House 271-158. Fewer House Republicans supported today's CR than supported the one passed on March 1st - 186 voted for today's bill, compared to 231 who supported the previous one. The Senate is expected to easily pass the measure this week. Some are calling for more significant fiscal reforms before they agree to any more short-term resolutions.

We hope all members of Congress can start to look beyond this partisan debate and focus on the long-term fiscal reforms that are needed to stabilize our debt and put our country back on a sustainable fiscal path.