Senate Fails to Pass Continuing Resolution

Brian Darling / March 10, 2011

The fight to cut government spending is entering a new phase as the Senate yesterday rejected two pieces of legislation to fund the government though a long-term continuing resolution (CR) for the remainder of the fiscal year. The Senate seems incapable of negotiating with the House, because they can’t even get a simple majority vote to pass the House Republicans’ or the Senate Democrats’ CR spending proposal. This vote does not bode well for a resolution of the stalemate on funding the federal government’s discretionary functions for the remainder of this fiscal year.

H.R. 1 funds the federal government for the remainder of Fiscal Year 2011 and contains $61 billion in cuts from FY 2010 levels of spending. H.R. 1 passed the House on a 235–189 vote last month, yet it failed in the Senate by a 44–56 vote. The vote was party line, with the exceptions of Senators Jim DeMint (R-SC), Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT), all members of the Senate Tea Party Caucus, who said they voted against the measure because it did not cut deep enough. Senator Lee said after the vote: (more…)