White House on spending bill: ‘This should not be that hard’

White House press secretary Jay Carney on Friday chastised Republicans for playing politics with a government spending measure.

“This is the basic responsibility that Congress has,” Carney said. “This should not be that hard.”

Congress is locked in another stalemate over a measure to keep the government funded through Nov. 19. The House approved a measure early Friday with GOP support after failing to move a similar measure on Wednesday, but Senate Democrats object to provisions on disaster spending and are expected to reject it. 

The House and Senate are scheduled to go on recess next week. Without a new funding measure, the government would shut down after Sept. 30.

Carney accused House Republicans of passing a bill late Thursday night “that they know can’t pass the Senate and therefore can’t become law.”

The press secretary, harkening back to the July debt-ceiling debate, said that the continuing-resolution kerfuffle is proof that “the fever hasn’t broken.”

“The kind of behavior that we saw this summer that really repels most Americans continues,” Carney said. “You’re playing politics with something that is the basic responsibility of Congress, which is to fund the government. And this should be particularly simple this year because we’ve already agreed on the funding level.”

The White House has not threatened to veto the GOP spending measure.

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