President Barack Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner have reached a deal on the budget to prevent a government shutdown. But that doesn’t mean that Boehner can get the entire Republican conference on board.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), chairman of the Republican Study Committee, told reporters that he’s a no vote on the final package.
“We really wanted more advancement on the life issue than was in the final package,” Jordan told a small group of reporters after the vote. “I think there’s a significant number of no votes.”
Jordan was referring to the anti-abortion provisions that were stripped in the deal.
But other Republicans left their caucus meeting in the basement of the Capitol building with a more positive perspective.
“I go back to what Ronald Reagan used to say, if you get 80 percent of what you’re shooting for, that’s a victory, you go back and get the 20 percent later,” Rep. Tim Griffin (R-AR) told me, adding he hadn’t seen all the details of the plan yet but understood that the Senate would hold a separate vote on defunding Planned Parenthood.
“I think it is as good a deal we could have gotten,” Griffin said. “The troops are going to be paid, the military will be funded until the end of the year, so that will be done, and there will be significant spending reductions.
