House GOP talks 'minibuses,' moves toward Senate in spending fight

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The Hill:

House Republican leaders are embracing the Senate’s proposal of a government funding bill that would run through Dec. 9 despite opposition from conservatives who want a longer measure to avoid a lame-duck session of Congress.

 

Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) at a closed-door House GOP meeting on Friday sought to win members over by saying that he wanted to avoid a lame-duck omnibus bill after the elections.

 

An omnibus wraps up the various appropriations measures for the government into one huge bill, which many members argue can be approved without enough scrutiny. Conservatives in the House have repeatedly criticized the idea of doing an omnibus.

 

Ryan laid out the pros and cons of a three-month or six-month funding bill that could be approved in September without explicitly endorsing one or the other.

 

But approving a short-term bill this month would give Congress more time to approve a series of "minibuses," or smaller groupings of appropriations measure, in the lame-duck.

 

Passing the short-term bill would put the House GOP in lockstep with the Senate, which hopes to approve a funding bill through Dec. 9 as early as next week.