House Republicans Set to Push Stopgap Funding Without Democrats

(Bloomberg) -- House Republicans can pass a two-week extension of government funding to avoid a shutdown on Dec. 8 without Democratic votes to move the next deadline to the Friday before Christmas and give lawmakers time to finish work on tax legislation, a member of the GOP leadership said.

“They had a very productive discussion in the conference here about what the strategy is,” Representative Richard Hudson, a North Carolina Republican, said in a brief interview as he was leaving a House GOP meeting Friday.

He said the leadership team will continue to press rank-and-file members to vote for the funding extension without any extraneous provisions that could cause delays. Hudson expressed confidence that the Republican votes are there in the House.

The short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, would still need support from at least some Democrats in the Senate, where 60 votes will be needed to advance the measure and Republicans have only 52 members. But being able to get it through the House by relying just on the Republican majority removes some Democrat leverage to press to include other issues.

Republicans are betting that pushing another tough spending negotiation off until Dec. 22 will give both chambers enough time to pass a reconciled version of their massive tax overhaul legislation. The House passed its version, and the Senate is trying to finish voting on its version this week.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anna Edgerton in Washington at aedgerton@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Kevin Whitelaw at kwhitelaw@bloomberg.net, Joe Sobczyk, Laurie Asséo

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