WASHINGTON (CNN) — House Speaker Paul Ryan said the House will pass a short term funding bill this week to avoid a government shutdown, as negotiations appear stalled on a year-long measure and clock ticks toward the deadline Friday, December 11, 2015.
“We don’t expect to do this for a long term, we need to get it right,” Ryan said. “I don’t want us to go home until we get this done.”
The speaker said the funding legislation would extend current funding levels for “a handful of days.”
Federal agencies run out of money at midnight on Friday.
Negotiations between House and Senate leaders on a spending bill are “stuck,” Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Appropriations panel, said late Monday. Both sides are feuding over which policy riders should be attached to it.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy told House GOP members to be prepared to stay in Washington, and warned there could be votes over the weekend.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus are insisting that leaders insert a bill the House passed last month requiring the Secretary of Homeland Security to certify that all refugees entering the U.S. from Syria and Iraq don’t present a national security risk. But Democrats are rejecting that effort, and pointing instead to a bipartisan bill the House is slated to pass Tuesday to reform the visa waiver program.
