With one week until shutdown, GOP puts Senate Dems on the spot

House Republicans are putting Senate Democrats on the spot in the fight to avoid a government shutdown, proposing new spending legislation that they say is a “bipartisan” plan for cuts.  

GOP leaders are set to unveil a short-term spending bill on Friday afternoon that would cut $4 billion in spending from current levels while funding the government through March 18.  

{mosads}Republicans say the bill is a good-faith effort to find common ground with Democrats and avoid a shutdown that would begin after March 4 if spending legislation is not approved.

“We hope the Senate is going to finally join us and not play chicken with a government shutdown,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Friday.

House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) is expected to release a detailed list of the spending cuts in the continuing resolution (CR) on Friday afternoon.

GOP aides said the cuts in the two-week bill would mirror ones recommended by President Obama and his party, leaving very little room for Senate Democrats to object.

Senate Democrats, led by Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), have indicated they will not pass a short-term spending bill unless it keeps funding at current levels.

“The Republicans’ so-called compromise is nothing more than the same extreme package the House already handed the Senate, just with a different bow,” Reid spokesman Jon Summers said Wednesday night. “This isn’t a compromise, it’s a hardening of their original position.”

As they point fingers in the shutdown fight, House Republicans and Senate Democrats are working hard to portray themselves as flexible, and the other side as intransigent.

During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) used the word “reckless” to describe the House GOP. During a teleconference earlier this week, Schumer employed the term again.

Schumer, who heads the messaging operation for Senate Democrats, has repeatedly said his side is willing to negotiate while accusing the GOP of not acting in good faith. House Republicans, Schumer says, are the ones who want the government to shut down.

Republicans, who lost the message war during the government shutdowns of 1995 and 1996, countered on Friday by saying they are embracing spending cuts that President Obama has called for. Details on their stopgap spending measure haven’t been released, but the Republicans’ volley back to the Senate is apparently aimed at convincing the public they are being reasonable.

On a conference call to preview the short-term CR Friday morning, Republicans continued their war of words with Reid, arguing that the onus is on his caucus to avert a shutdown.

Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) called the short-term funding measure “bipartisan” and said he is hopeful Senate Democrats will join with the House to approve it.

“If [Senate Democrats] walk away from this offer, they are actively engineering a government shutdown,” Roskam said.

“I don’t know why Democrats can’t take these steps to rein government in and keep the government running,” said House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

Over the last several weeks, House Republicans, as well as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), have said repeatedly that Schumer and other Democrats are the ones who are constantly talking about a shutdown.

Schumer claims Democrats have taken a government closure off the table, while Republicans have not. The new House GOP bill will enable Republicans to say that if Senate Democrats and the White House back their bipartisan bill, the stoppage will not occur.

A Republican aide said the new stopgap bill would be moved swiftly through the chamber in order to meet the Friday deadline and give the Senate time to consider it.

Aides said the debate on the stopgap bill will be more restricted than the scene that unfolded on the House floor last week, when lawmakers proposed hundreds of amendments to a long-term spending bill during a marathon voting session.

The House passed a continuing resolution early Saturday morning that cut $61 billion from current spending levels.

Reid said the long-term funding measure was dead on arrival in his chamber, but his party indicated on Thursday its willingness to consider a proposal that would cut spending for the remainder of 2011.

Senate Democratic aides said Thursday they were working to identify spending cuts for a seven-month CR “in the spirit of trying to narrow the gap” with House Republicans over this year’s spending.

The aides said they were hopeful the seven-month CR would convince House Republicans to accept a short-term bill with no spending cuts.

Roskam said Friday he was pleased that Democrats across the Capitol had finally moved toward their position.

“It appears that just now, in the half-day or so, that Senate Democrats are indicating even a willingness to contemplate cuts, which is a watershed for them because they’ve been wedded to this failed status quo,” Roskam said.

“There’s no reason for Senate Democrats to walk away from this,” Roskam said of the two-week bill.

With a week left before the shutdown deadline, both parties are aiming to win over independent voters who embraced the Democratic Party in 2006 and 2008 and threw their support to the GOP in November.
 
Unity will be a major test for both parties.
 
The House Republican freshmen pushed their leaders to back additional spending cuts during last week’s debate, which they subsequently did. But there are signs that House Republicans will not be as fractured as they were earlier this month.
 
During an interview this week on FOX Business Network, freshman Rep. Mick Mulvaney (R-S.C.) said, “Listen, I think folks, especially on the other side of the aisle, are looking for division within the Republican Party, and it’s just not there.”
 
Mulvaney, who pushed an amendment that would scale back spending back to 2006 levels, did not mention in the interview that his measure fell short on the House floor. Instead, he extolled the leadership’s plan to return spending to 2008 levels.
 
“Right now, we’re all on the same page, which is stop the spending,” he said.

Molly K. Hooper, Vicki Needham and Erik Wasson contributed to this report.