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House Sends Two-Week Spending Bill to Senate

Updated: 6:58 p.m.

The House passed a two-week stopgap spending bill Tuesday that would avert a government shutdown and give the House and Senate more time to work out a spending measure to finish the fiscal year. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the stopgap at 11 a.m. Wednesday.

The GOP continuing resolution would reduce spending over the two-week period by more than $4 billion by eliminating some earmarks and programs the Obama administration has already said it would like to terminate.

Senate Democrats have already signaled they would agree to the stopgap — Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) told reporters Tuesday afternoon that the chamber would pass the bill. The House vote Tuesday was 335-91.

The continuing resolution that is currently funding the government expires Friday. The stopgap measure should give House GOP and Senate Democratic leaders some breathing room to work on a longer-term bill, and House Republicans wasted no time moving to that fight.

“After agreeing to this short-term measure, the Senate must buckle down and get to work on passing the full-year continuing resolution the House sent them two weeks ago,” House Republican Study Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (Ohio) said in a statement.

The House passed a continuing resolution Feb. 19 that would fund the government through fiscal 2011, which ends Sept. 30. But Reid has called that bill a non-starter.

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