Speaker Boehner: ‘So far, so good’ on Senate’s continuing resolution bill

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday gave a tentative blessing to the spending bill moving through the Senate and defended the decision not to try to defund the 2010 healthcare law in that measure.

The House last week passed a continuing resolution to keep the government funded for the remaining six months of the fiscal year, and the Speaker had warned the Senate not to “get greedy” and add extraneous measures to the legislation.

{mosads}Senate Democrats added several full-year appropriations bills to the measure, which already included separate bills for the departments of Defense and Veterans Affairs. But Boehner indicated he did not object to those additions.

“I think I’ll wait to see what the Senate produces once it comes off the floor. So far, so good,” he told reporters at his weekly Capitol press conference.

The Senate on Thursday afternoon was considering amendments to the continuing resolution, with final passage expected before the end of the week.

Conservative Republicans, led by freshman Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), had tried unsuccessfully to attach an amendment defunding President Obama’s signature healthcare overhaul. Boehner said doing so would risk “shutting down the government.”

“We have voted many times within the last two years that we’ve been in the majority to defund ObamaCare, to repeal ObamaCare, and we will do so again here in the House in the coming months,” Boehner said Thursday. “Our goal here is to cut spending. It’s not to shut down the government. I believe that trying to put ObamaCare on this vehicle risked shutting down the government. That’s not what our goal is. Our goal is to reduce spending.”

With Obama in the Capitol on Thursday and the Conservative Political Action Conference occurring near Washington, Boehner’s press conference was sparsely attended by reporters — a rarity for the highest ranking Republican in the country.

“Gee whiz, there’s nobody here,” the Speaker murmured as entered the room, which was more than half empty.