The Hill News

The Obama administration was prepared to accept a four-week extension in government spending, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said Wednesday.

The No. 2 House Republican said that White House chief of staff William Daley communicated that the administration was prepared to accept an even longer extension in spending than the one set to pass Congress this week.

"Yesterday I talked to the White House chief of staff and he indicated that they would have gone along with four weeks, at this rate," Cantor said on MSNBC.

The government runs out of money on Friday, and would face a shutdown barring action by Congress to extend funding.

The House passed on Tuesday, with substantial Democratic support, a measure to fund government for another two weeks, at reduced levels. It's this measure that, according to Cantor, the White House would have been willing to accept for a period twice as long.

Before Republicans un! veiled the specifics of their proposal, the short-term continuing resolution faced an unsure fate in the Senate, where Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) had loudly castigated deep cuts sought by House Republicans. But the Senate appears poised to take up and pass the two-week measure.

The short-term CR gives Congress another two weeks to cobble out an agreement over legislation to fund government for the rest of this fiscal year, though Cantor's remark Wednesday suggests there may be another two weeks available to lawmakers to negotiate if they can't strike a deal.

That debate is also separate from impending arguments in Congress over next year's budget and a vote to raise the debt ceiling, two other debates on the horizon that will involve maneuvering by both parties on government spending.