Boehner Plans to Amend Senate CR

By Matt Fuller

Posted September 26, 2013 at 10:52am

Updated 11:28 a.m. | Speaker John A. Boehner signaled Thursday that the House would not simply vote on the version of the continuing resolution the Senate sends back, running up against a timeline that could suggest at least a temporary government shutdown.

Asked if he would now accept a “clean” CR from the Senate to avoid a government shutdown, the Ohio Republican was plain-spoken: “I do not see that happening.”

While the Senate has accelerated its pace on the CR, there will be little time before Sept. 30 for that chamber to send its version of the CR back to the House, have the House send a revised version to the Senate, and then have the CR make its way through the Senate chamber — and that would assume the Senate accepts what the House sends it.

The Senate is expected to strip the Obamacare defunding language from the CR, leaving the health care law in place, and shorten the length of the continuing resolution from Dec. 15 to Nov. 15.

“I’ve made it clear now for months and months and months that we have no interest in seeing the government shut down, but we’ve got to address the spending problems that we have in this town,” Boehner said. “And so there will be options available to us. There’s not going to be any speculation on what we are going to do or not do until the Senate passes their bill.”

Still, the speaker expressed some optimism.