The U.S. Senate is expected to vote today on another stop-gap spending bill that’ll keep the federal government running for three more weeks. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin, a Democrat, says he’s confident this measure which includes six-billion dollars in spending cuts will pass, as it did in the House on Tuesday, despite heavy partisan quarreling.
“I’m hopeful,” Harkin says. “I think the vote in the House the other day was very significant. The Tea Party group got isolated and 54 Republicans voted no but the moderate Republicans and Democrats joined together and that marks a big turning point.”
Harkin says many lawmakers are getting fed up with the Tea Party’s actions. “Their motto is: ‘It’s my way or the highway, we’ll shut the government down if I don’t get everything exactly like I want it,’ and people are saying that’s not the right way to run the government,” Harkin says. “We’re on a better course now to having a realistic resolution of our problems here on the budget.”
If this three-week extension passes, it would give Congress more time to hammer out a full budget that would carry on through the end of the fiscal year, at the end of September. This stopgap measure would run through April 8th.