by On Thursday, Congress sent legislation to prevent a partial government shutdown to President Biden, rushing to fund federal agencies until early March, a day before the money ran out.
Despite vigorous opposition from far-right Republicans, the House voted 314-108 to approve interim funding just hours after the Senate provided overwhelming bipartisan support for the measure in a 77-18 vote, allowing lawmakers narrowly miss Friday’s deadline. .
“There will be no shutdown on Friday,” said Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader. “Because both sides have worked together, the government will remain open. Services will not be interrupted. We will avoid an unnecessary disaster.”
Passage of the bill gives lawmakers another six weeks to negotiate and approve a dozen spending bills totaling $1.66 trillion to fund the government through the fall, the level Democrats and Republicans agreed to. earlier this month. That plan would keep most federal spending stable while bolstering the military.
Action in Congress cleared the measure for Biden, who is expected to sign it quickly before Friday’s midnight deadline. It was the third time since the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1 that Congress temporarily extended the spending.
Lawmakers from both parties hope it will be the last and that Congress can complete its spending matters for the year by early March. Congressional leaders noted that the constant threat of government shutdowns causes chaos in federal agencies even if the crisis is averted at the last minute.
The House vote presented the latest challenge to Speaker Mike Johnson, who personally negotiated the overall spending package with Schumer and has been fiercely attacked by the far-right faction in the House for doing so. Right-wing Republicans had pushed for much deeper spending cuts and argued that the House should block government spending entirely until President Biden agrees to crack down on migration at the U.S. border with Mexico.
On Thursday, the House Freedom Caucus urged Republicans to reject the bill, saying the legislation represented a continuation of policies laid out by Biden and the Democratic-controlled Congress in 2022, to which nearly all House Republicans Chamber were opposed at that time.
“President Mike Johnson should abandon his deal with Senate Majority Leader Schumer and pass an appropriations package that will significantly reduce year-over-year spending and secure our southern border,” the Freedom Caucus said in a statement. “This is what winning looks like.”
Rep. Bob Good, a Virginia Republican who leads the group, called the bill a “loser for the American people.”
“We have a majority in half of the legislative branch,” he said. “When will that start counting for anything?”
In the end, Johnson was only able to muster a slim majority of Republicans who voted on the bill: 107 supported it and 106 opposed it. Democrats provided most of the support.
Johnson has told colleagues that he believes a shutdown could spark a backlash against Republicans in an election year, and that once it occurred, it would be difficult to end.
Given domestic opposition, Johnson was forced to use a special procedure that bypassed Republican opposition to even bring the bill to the floor. He then had to rely on substantial help from Democrats to pass it, just as former President Kevin McCarthy did last year to avoid a federal shutdown and receivership. While McCarthy’s maneuvers contributed to the pressure to oust him, several conservatives have said they do not anticipate a move to remove Johnson over the spending issue.
Even considering the bill represented a change of course by the president, who vowed last year to never adopt another short-term spending package. But time ran out to enact the 12 individual bills that fund the government, forcing it to act.
To overcome procedural objections to moving quickly in the Senate, Schumer allowed Republicans to vote on three proposed changes that would have effectively derailed the measure. But it all failed, clearing the way for its approval and a quick vote in the House. With a snowstorm forecast for Washington on Friday, action accelerated as lawmakers feared airline cancellations that could leave them stranded in Washington over the weekend.
Under the legislation, funding for agriculture, veterans programs, transportation, housing and other federal operations would remain in place until March 1, and funding for the rest of the government, including the Pentagon, would expire on March 8.
With additional time, members of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees hope to advance the dozen bills that fund the government in line with the spending level agreed upon by Johnson and Schumer. But it won’t be easy.
In addition to objections to the spending itself, far-right conservatives in the House are demanding that the measures include restrictions on abortion and other limits on government authority that Democrats say they will not accept, creating a showdown over those policy provisions.
“We have a lot of work left to do,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. “It has to happen in a bipartisan way.”
If lawmakers fail to reach an agreement on the legislation, they face the prospect of an automatic 1 percent spending cut across all federal programs, both domestic and military.
