Idaho Congressman Mike Simpson today joined Republican Appropriation Committee Members in sending a letter to Chairman David Obey calling for any Continuing Resolution (CR) legislation to be "clean" and free of any extraneous spending or policy provisions. Because Congress has failed to pass a single appropriations bill this year, a CR will be necessary to continue government operations past the end of the fiscal year, which expires on September 30th.

"We have serious and growing concerns about the process and composition of any potential CR… At a time of extreme spending and political fatigue, it is simply unacceptable to use a must-pass CR as a legislative vehicle for more wasteful federal spending or completing an array of unfinished political business before the election,” the Republican Members wrote.

“It is becoming very clear that Congressional Democrats are planning to use the CR as a way to approve even more unnecessary and extraneous spending and to implement policies that lack the support of Congress and the American people,” said Congressman Simpson. “Just like every American family must create a budget and then keep to it, Congress has a responsibility to pass its own spending plans and not force through additional spending that isn’t accounted for as part of the process. This letter makes it clear that Republicans will not support these efforts.”

The letter also stated, “We want to make our position abundantly clear: we will not support efforts to pass a CR that contains any unnecessary spending or legislative provisions unrelated to maintaining government operations.  We respectfully request that you fashion a CR true to the purpose of temporarily continuing the activities of government at the absolute minimum level necessary until we finish our work on the fiscal year 2011 spending bills.”

The full text of the letter is attached.