Clock ticking on spending bill

Legislation must pass by Friday to avert shutdown

WASHINGTON — With a shutdown clock ticking toward a midnight Friday deadline, House Republican leaders struggled on Wednesday to unite the GOP rank and file behind a must-pass spending bill.

Although a major obstacle evaporated after key GOP senators dropped a demand to add health insurance subsidies for the poor, a number of defense hawks offered resistance to a plan by GOP leaders to punt a guns-versus-butter battle with Democrats into the new year.

There’s still plenty of time to avert a government shutdown.

Some lawmakers from hurricane-hit states also worried that an $81 billion disaster aid bill was at risk of getting left behind in the rush to exit Washington for the holidays.

Lawmakers said the GOP vote-counting team would assess support for the plan and GOP leaders would set a course of action from there.

Rules Committee Chairman Pete Sessions, R-texas, said “there’s no specific direction right now” about the path forward.

He spoke after an hourlong closed-door meeting of Republicans in the Capitol basement.

An earlier plan favored by pro-pentagon members of the influential Armed Services Committee would have combined the stopgap funding bill with a $658 billion Pentagon funding measure. But the idea is a nonstarter with the Senate, especially Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.

Regardless of how the crisis of the moment will be solved, most of the items on Capitol Hill’s list of unfinished business are going to be pushed into next year.

The upcoming short-term measure would fund the government through Jan. 19, giving lawmakers time to work out their leftover business.