House Republicans have agreed to have an up-or-down vote on the bipartisan Senate deal to avert the "fiscal cliff," rather than trying to amend the Senate bill with more spending cuts before voting, according to a senior GOP leadership aide.
The vote will likely come tonight despite top House Republicans' earlier opposition to the deal, which the Senate passed in the wee hours of New Year's Day, because of concerns about the cost of the deal's spending provisions.
If House Republicans had tweaked the legislation, there would have been no clear path for its return to the Senate before a new Congress is sworn in Thursday.
The Republican-controlled House was expected to launch into procedural steps leading up to a vote, which was possible late this evening.
Before deciding on the up-or-down vote, GOP leaders had emerged from a morning conference meeting disenchanted by the legislative package devised by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Mo., and Vice President Biden early this morning, with several insisting they could not vote on it as it stood.
"I do not support the bill," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., said as he left the meeting. "We're looking for the best path forward. No decisions have been made yet."
No comments:
Post a Comment