TICK TOCK: The government will shut down in 10 days if Congress can’t pass a funding patch. THE LATEST Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has moved to begin debate on a House bill that could serve as a vehicle for a continuing resolution keeping the government functioning past Sept. 30. The move to tee up the House FAA bill is a signal that senators have lost patience with the House as it flounders in its attempts to pass any sort of appropriations legislation. With the chamber out Monday for Yom Kippur and a shutdown looming just four days later, senators have no time to waste. “Fairly soon, it seems to me that Republicans and Democrats are going to have to get together and come up with something that the extremes of both parties don’t like,†Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) said earlier in the afternoon, adding that the House still has time to send their own bill over. Which brings us to … THE BLUE-SCREEN MAJORITY Another House Republican leadership plan hit the ash heap this afternoon after hard-right holdouts tanked a second rule that would have brought a Pentagon spending bill to the floor for passage this week — sending GOP lawmakers back to the drawing board and putting that familiar cerulean image back on TV screens across Capitol Hill. — OUT: Any hopes of passing a continuing resolution over the weekend. — IN: Trying to move forward on some of the other full-year appropriations bills that are awaiting floor action. The details: Republican leaders are preparing a new rule that would tee up potential votes on the Defense, Homeland Security, State-Foreign Operations, Energy-Water or Agriculture-FDA bills, according to two members involved in the negotiations. The bills’ toplines would be trimmed down in order to get enough Republicans on board with passage, and the Ag bill’s prospects have improved, Meredith Lee Hill reports, after GOP leaders struck a compromise on a controversial abortion pill measure. The timing: Completely unclear. There are still active talks in the conference about getting at least one bill ready for a vote this weekend, two members told us. “I think they’re going to call people back,†Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) said. The problem: There’s no way any appropriations bills written below the toplines that McCarthy agreed to with President Joe Biden in May will pass muster in the Senate. “Hell, no, they are not going to become law,†Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) told Jordain. Womack, a top appropriator, laid out where this latest plan is certain to lead: “Let me tell you what we're risking right now. … We're risking the Senate completing its work and sending it to us and saying, ‘Here you go.’†The even bigger problem: Passing any of the full-year bills in the House does nothing to prevent an Oct. 1 shutdown. But it appears to be the only option McCarthy has as it becomes eminently clear he doesn’t have any way to pass a shutdown-averting CR without Democratic votes. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) emerged from negotiations in Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s office earlier today and declared that he was “giving the eulogy for a CR right now,†reiterating that he would never vote for one. Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the House Freedom Caucus chair, did not rule out some sort of deal that could unlock a stopgap — “Matt’s not the only guy in the Congress,†he told reporters — but Perry’s efforts to forge a GOP consensus have so far fallen flat. Meanwhile down Pennsylvania Avenue: The Office of Management and Budget plans to tell federal agencies on Friday to update their shutdown contingency plans if they haven’t already, an OMB official tells us. That directive from the White House budget office is a pretty standard exercise about a week before federal cash is set to expire, whether or not it looks like Congress is poised to stave off a funding lapse. — Daniella Diaz, Jordain Carney and Caitlin Emma with help from Sarah Ferris and Jennifer ScholtesÂ
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