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STORY: Infighting among U.S. House Republicans stalled two spending measures on Tuesday, pushing the government even closer to the brink of shutdown by the end of the month.

One involved a procedural but key vote to move forward a 30-day stopgap measure - that would keep federal agencies afloat after funding expires on September 30th.

But divisions in his party forced Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to postpone the vote on Tuesday.

It’s a Republican proposal, but more than a dozen of the party’s hardliners opposed it, enough to block its path forward in the House.

They want assurances that fiscal 2024 spending will not exceed $1.47 trillion – the top line of 2022.

That’s $120 billion less than McCarthy and Democratic President Joe Biden agreed to in May.

McCarthy later said he wanted to give lawmakers enough time to reach agreement on the legislation.

Meanwhile, the other motion was again procedural - simply to open debate on a defense spending bill.

It was also proposed by the Republicans, who narrowly control the House.

But five GOP hardliners joined Democrats to block the motion, leaving it defeated by two votes.

After the raucous session on Tuesday, several more moderate Republicans expressed frustration over the failures.

Tom Cole, chair of the House Rules Committee, called the opposition from the small group of his party’s hardliners “very unfortunate”.

With less than two weeks to avoid a shutdown, lawmakers have begun discussing other options for keeping the government funded.

There is at least one bipartisan House group, whose members say they’re working on a back-up plan.

Among them, Republican representative Brian Fitzpatrick said:

“Just gotta keep trying to get to yes, and if we can't and we're coming too close to the deadline, then Plan B.”