UPDATE: When asked about Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s comments this morning that Senate Republicans “don’t want to vote on their own bill,” meaning the House bill (H.R. 1) to cut spending by $61 billion over the next seven months, a GOP Senate aide assures us that “the sky is not falling.”

“When we finish the patent bill there will be votes on both the House-passed bill and the status quo Democrat bill,” the aide said. “That has never been in question.”

Reid’s earlier remarks, the aide suggested, amounted to a whole lot of fuss over nothing.

“My guess is that Sen. Reid’s speech today had more to do with an attempt to distract you from Sen. Manchin’s speech and the need to fund the Cowboy Poetry Festival than anything based in reality.”

More on Manchin here.