U.S. House Passes Spending Bill To Avert Shutdown

The U.S. House approved a bill today to avert a government shutdown through September. The legislation gives some federal agencies more flexibility in dealing with sequestration, but that isn't good enough for Virginia Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly.

"It bakes in sequestration," he says. That's those billions of dollars in budget cuts that are threatening to harm the region's economy.

Connolly says Congress ought to have rearranged those automatic budget cuts and raised new revenue instead of rubber stamping the budget cuts that were never intended to go into effect. But Virginia Democrat Jim Moran supported the bill even though he opposed many parts of it. He says this Congress has a bad enough record already.

"Right now, the whole thing is dysfunctional enough without the possibility of another government shutdown."

Maryland Democrat John Sarbanes was the only other lawmaker in the region to oppose the bill keeping the government running for another six months.