With little time remaining before Congress departs for the holidays, Speaker John Boehner ruled out a continuing resolution to wrap up the remaining appropriations bills at a GOP Conference meeting today.

“The Speaker said this morning, ‘no CR,’” said Rep. Steven LaTourette (Ohio), a member of the Appropriations Committee.

“He didn’t want to do a CR, he told the conference, because a CR would have lower defense numbers, is one observation that he made. And it was his objective to get the appropriations process finished,” LaTourette said.

“We want to get the appropriations bills done,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), another Appropriations Committee member.

Simpson went on to explain that appropriators had done enough of the legwork that they could conceivably get agreement on individual bills.

“And all of the other nine subcommittees; some of them are already done, working with their Senate [counterparts], so they can be put in an omnibus. Some of us are still working with our Senate colleagues trying to come up with a compromise on our particular appropriations bill.”

But GOP leaders recognize the short deadline they are facing.

“There are a lot of discussions going on in this building about how we’re going to get out of here over the next two and a half weeks,” Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) said today.