Cantor: No More Emergency Measures To Fund The Government

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)
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Late next week, if Democrats and Republicans haven’t agreed on a long-term spending bill, Congress can still avoid a government shutdown if they pass yet another stop gap plan to keep the lights on. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) says that’s not going to happen.

“I can’t see how we can do anything with folks on the other side of the Capitol and other side of the aisle who now think this is a political game,” Cantor said during his weekly Capitol briefing with reporters.

Pressed further, he took the idea of another emergency measure off the table.

“I mean I want to see a long term CR here. We’ve got bigger things to deal with. Time is up here,” Cantor said. “A short-term CR without long-term commitment is unacceptable.”

To translate — Congress will not pass a stopgap again unless there’s an agreement in place for a solution that funds the government through September. If next week, that deal has been hammered out, but there’s not enough time, procedurally, to pass it before the April 8 deadline, or if the details of the bill still need to be put on paper by bill writers, we could see a very short-term measure to buy those few days.

But if there’s no deal, then there’s a shutdown. Period. And a deal will be hard to come by.

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