Senate Rejects House Spending Bill

As expected, the Senate rejected a spending bill passed late last night by the House. This was House Speaker John Boehner's second attempt to pass a stopgap bill that paired disaster relief with cuts. The first was shot down by House Democrats, who wanted a clean relief bill with no cuts, and by conservative House Republicans, who wanted more cuts. The new bill contained an additional $100 million in cuts from a loan program that funded the bankrupt solar-panel company Solyndra. Without a deal, the fund for disaster relief will run out of money early next week, and the government will shut down Oct. 1.