The House passed a continuing resolution on Tuesday “that would cut $6 billion from current discretionary-spending levels and keep the government operating through April 8,” National Journal reports. The House voted 271-158 to approve the bill (Sanchez, 3/15).

Later this week, the bill moves to the Senate, where it is expected to pass before moving on to President Barack Obama who “has indicated he’ll sign it into law,” CQ writes (Weyl, 3/15). “It remains unclear whether Members [of Congress] will be able to negotiate a longer-term spending bill in the next three weeks. So far, the White House, Senate Democrats and House GOP leaders have made little progress on a deal” for a final fiscal 2011 bill, Roll Call reports (Stanton, 3/15).

On Monday, in the aftermath of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, House Republican leaders “defended cuts to foreign aid” and other areas of the budget, “arguing the cuts are necessary to shrinking the nation’s deficit,” the Huffington Post reports.  

“All of us need to be tempered by the fact that we’ve got to stop spending money we don’t have,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said at his weekly press briefing. “Essentially, what you are saying is to go borrow money from the Japanese so we can spend it there to help the Japanese,” he said (Foley, 3/14).