By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — Speaker Kevin McCarthy was running out of options Monday as he pushed ahead with a plan to keep the federal government from shutting down, but even including hardline border security provisions wasn’t enough to appease the far-right flank in his Republican House majority.

The speaker is trying to convince his Republican conference that there will heavy political fallout from a shutdown as he plows toward a vote to pass a stopgap measure, called a continuing resolution, that would keep government offices open past the Sept. 30 deadline. GOP leadership is preparing for a vote by Thursday, but McCarthy is warning he’ll keep House lawmakers in Washington into the weekend. Regardless, many are already bracing for a weeks-long shutdown.

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“I’ve told all of Congress you’re not going to go home. We’re going to continue to work through this,” McCarthy said Monday at the Capitol. “Things that are tough sometimes are worth it.”

He also suggested that time is still on his side and panned the idea of compromising with Democrats as he tries to pass the annual spending measures on his own, saying there were “a lot of good ideas” still coming from Republicans.

“This isn’t the 30th — we’ve got a long ways to go,” he said.

There is also no hope of passing all of the appropriations bills on Congress’ agenda before then.

Even a Defense appropriations bill — usually an easy lift with Republicans — has stalled in the House as they resist more money for Ukraine.

The speaker on a Sunday night call with House Republicans pitched the one-month funding bill that was negotiated between the hard-right House Freedom Caucus and a group of pragmatic-minded conservatives known as the Main Street Caucus, according to those with knowledge of the call.

McCarthy called the package a “bottom-up” approach.

It was intended to win support from the conservative wing of the Republican Conference by cutting last year’s overall spending levels by 1%, and including a slew of Republican proposals for border security and immigration. But in order to protect current spending levels for Republican priorities of defense, veterans and disaster relief, it slashes other spending by more than 8%.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a floor speech said the proposal from the House “can be boiled down to two words: slapdash, reckless.”

“Slapdash, because it’s not a serious proposal for avoiding a shutdown, and reckless because if passed would cause immense harm to so many priorities that help the American people,” he said.

With the Senate controlled by Democrats who, along with some Republicans, will not accept the conservative options, the best hope McCarthy has at this point is to simply pass a measure to kickstart debate with the other chamber. But even that route is doubtful with time dwindling and McCarthy struggling to push his conference to avert a shutdown.

“There’s quite a few people that are against it right now,” said Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., leader of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative faction in the House, about the latest proposal, adding that he was still considering it. He said a lot of work was happening “behind the scenes” to get the votes to pass it.