Morning Briefing

In an effort to avoid a government shutdown, House Republicans are drafting a new continuing resolution (CR) that will include some cuts to the federal budget, Republican leadership aides said on Wednesday, Roll Call reports (Stanton, 2/23). "The measure will contain about $4 billion in spending cuts and will merge cuts approved last week by the House and several taken from President Obama's list of program terminations and savings," National Journal writes. "The CR would extend government financing for two weeks" and the cuts "would be prorated to reflect" the reductions that were approved in last week's CR. "In other words, the $4 billion in savings would be roughly equal to the cuts the CR called for if carried out for just two weeks," the publication notes.