Continuing Resolution

Earlier this evening, the House of Representatives voted against a short-term continuing resolution to fund the government past September 30. Forty-eight Republicans broke with their party's leadership and joined 182 Democrats in opposition of the bill. Reuters reports:

Republican leaders said they would figure out a way to pass the spending bill and avoid a government shutdown that would affect everything from national parks to scientific research.

"There is not going to be a shutdown. Everybody needs to relax," said Representative Eric Cantor, the No. 2 House Republican, as he emerged from a meeting with other top Republicans after the vote.

Conservative opposition to the CR for its insufficient spending cuts was expected by House leadership, but Republicans were also counting on several Democrats to help pass the bill. According to Erica Elliott, the press secretary for House majority whip Kevin McCarthy, the bill was "designed to pass with Democrat votes, in part based on assurances from Reps. [Norm] Dicks and [Steny] Hoyer that they would vote for it."

Indeed Dicks, a Washington state Democrat, said last week he would support the CR. But Hoyer, the House minority whip, told reporters yesterday that many Democrats would be "loath to support" the CR, which controversially offsets emergency disaster relief funds with spending cuts to a Department of Energy loan program. Neither DIcks nor Hoyer voted for the bill, and only six Democrats voted with the Republican leadership.

House Republicans will discuss their next move at tomorow's conference meeting on Capitol Hill.

Two days ago, I wrote that Republicans should be bold on entitlement reform. They should aggressively and sensibly make the case that, with mandatory spending by itself now surpassing total federal revenues (for this year, according to the president’s projections), we cannot in good conscience continue down this road and imperil future generations.