And the Washington word of the week is: “Cromnibus.”
It’s the love child of a “continuing resolution” (CR) and “omnibus” spending bill, two inside-the-Beltway terms for measures Congress has approved to keep the government funded. And with Capitol Hill again scrambling to find a way to fund the government before leaving town for the rest of the year, the cromnibus is the country’s best hope of avoiding a shutdown.
Congress has recently relied on continuing resolutions, or stopgap spending measures, to keep the government running for short amounts of time. Now, House Speaker John Boehner is looking to fund just the Department of Homeland Security with a CR in response to President Barack Obama’s executive actions on immigration. This way, the department responsible for implementing the president’s immigration orders would only be funded until March 2015 or earlier, allowing the GOP to revisit the issue once they have a majority in the Senate next year.
The rest of the government would be funded until September with the more comprehensive omnibus spending bill.
The cromnibus would allow House Republicans the chance to battle the president’s executive actions once they receive backup next year, and would give Democrats an imprint on government funding until next fall, even after losing the Senate.
Congressional aides say the bill is on track to pass the House on Thursday and will then be sent to the Senate. However Capitol Hill negotiators are still haggling over five or six contested policy riders included in the bill.
-- NBC's Alex Moe contributed to this report