Who are the obstructionists now?

Rick Moran

The House passed a stopgap spending measure last night and passed it on to the senate where Majority Leader Harry Reid says Democratswill block it:

The House early Friday narrowly approved a stopgap spending measure to keep the federal government running through Nov. 18, as Republican leaders secured the votes of conservatives who had rejected a similar bill a day earlier.

The 219-203 vote sets up a confrontation with the Senate, where Democratic leaders have vowed to block the measure in a dispute over federal disaster aid.For Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), the vote was little more than a mulligan.

After 48 Republicans opposed his bill on Wednesday, he faced a choice: Scrap a spending cut to win over Democrats who had pulled their support for the bill, or persuade dissenting conservatives that the original bill was the best deal they could get.

Boehner chose his right flank, adding a sweetener in the form of a $100 million rescission to the loan guarantee program that funded the bankrupt energy company Solyndra.

Twenty-four Republicans opposed the measure, half the number that voted against when it failed on Wednesday. Six Democrats supported it.

Congress must pass a stopgap spending bill by Sept. 30 to avert a government shutdown. Both the House and Senate are scheduled to be on recess next week, adding to the urgency of reaching an agreement by the weekend.

What's Reid's and the Democrat's problem with the bill? It partially offsets $3.6 billion in disaster relief by cutting $1.5 billion to a separate Department of Energy manufacturing loan program.

More green jobs nonsense, only this time, the Dems are willing to shut down the government to protect their donors. The idea that the government should be in the business of choosing winners and losers in the energy sector is outrageously stupid. You'd think Solyndra would have taught these economic dolts a lesson.

Fiscal hawks already gave in to the notion that the 2010 budget cuts were to be abandoned, as this stopgap bill exceeds those budgetary levels. They swallowed hard and did the responsible thing - they voted to fund the government, hoping to fight another day.

The Dems meanwhile will have a shutdown on their conscience unless they go along with Republican cuts.