WASHINGTON -- Frustrated with the pace of budget negotiations, Congressional conservatives are lining up against a new stopgap spending measure in a challenge to Republican leaders who back the legislation needed to avert a government shutdown.
With the House set to consider a three-week government financing bill on Tuesday that imposes $6 billion in new cuts, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the head of the conservative Republican Study Committee, said Monday that he would oppose the legislation.
"We need swift action to deal with spending for the rest of this year," said Mr. Jordan, whose group includes more than 170 House Republicans. "We need to stop sending taxpayer dollars to Planned Parenthood, and we need to defund Obamacare."
New resistance surfaced in the Senate as well, with Senator Marco Rubio, a freshman Republican from Florida, saying he would vote against any new temporary measures.
"Running our government on the fumes of borrowed spending is unacceptable, shortsighted and dangerous," Mr. Rubio said. "I commend the efforts of House and Senate Republican leaders to deal with this, but I did not come to the U.S. Senate to be part of some absurd political theater."
Just how many Republicans would oppose the bill remained unclear, but both veteran lawmakers and new members began proclaiming over the weekend that they would not back the plan. As more Republicans defected, others remained on the fence and returned to the Capitol on Monday to huddle with staff and the leadership about the fate of the legislation, known as a continuing resolution or C.R.
Representative Mo Brooks, Republican of Alabama, said: "I am torn between, on the one hand, passing a C.R. that keeps the government operating for another three weeks but which does little to forestall a federal government bankruptcy caused by unsustainable budget deficits, and, on the other hand, forcing the Congress and the White House to resolve a budget for the remainder of the year."
When the House approved its last short-term bill on March 1, just six Republicans opposed it. But many more already say they will not vote for the measure to be debated this week, citing a desire to settle the fight as well as the absence of policy provisions they favor, like a proposal to block money for the new health care law.
The rising resistance echoes an earlier fight when the rank and file forced the House Republican leadership to dig deeper for budget cuts. It presents a potentially serious problem for party leaders who, with Democratic assistance, had intended to push through the budget extension until April 8 to give Congress and the White House more time to work out a final deal.
But other lawmakers have tired of stopgap budgeting and want to finish and move on to clashes over next year's budget and a requested increase in the federal debt limit.
"We were elected to make bold changes to federal spending and to reverse our unsustainable deficits," said Representative Tim Huelskamp, a freshman Republican from Kansas. He said that by allowing Democrats to "stall a budget they should have completed six months ago, we are being distracted from even bigger tasks."
Despite the brewing conflict, top House Republicans leaders said they intended to move forward with the three-week extension.
"Right now, we are trying to position ourselves so that we can ensure no government shutdown but continue cutting spending and to reach a result that I think that we can get a majority of members to go along with," said Representative Eric Cantor of Virginia, the House majority leader. He accused Senate Democrats and the White House of dragging their feet in coming up with a spending plan.
Senate Democrats said the possibility of a rebellion by Republicans allied with the Tea Party presaged difficulties for the party's leadership in being able to get any eventual compromise approved in the House and the Senate.
"These Republicans' decisions to abandon the three-week proposal negotiated by their own party's leadership suggests that Tea Party lawmakers are unwilling to accept anything short of the extreme cuts in the House budget, even if it risks a shutdown," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, the chamber's No. 3 Democrat.
If many Republicans decide to reject the three-week extension, the leadership would need Democrats to provide the votes for approval; the level of Democratic support for the bill was unclear as well.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said he supported the three-week extension but acknowledged that winning passage was not going to be easy.
"Different members have different goals," Mr. McConnell said. "So this will be an interesting challenge as we go forward."
First Published: March 15, 2011, 4:00 a.m.
