Senate passes government funding bills, sending $1.2 trillion package to Biden's desk
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
After a day of total procedural hijinks, the Senate passed the government funding bills in the early morning hours of Saturday, having struck an eleventh-hour amendment agreement to allow expedited passage of the bill.
The $1.2 trillion government funding bill will now be sent to President Biden's desk as the late night drama on Capitol Hill caps a turbulent process featuring a year of haggling, six months of stopgaps and intense partisan clashes over money and policy.
Majority Leader Schumer announced the agreement on the floor early Saturday morning.
"It's been a very long and difficult day but we have just reached an agreement to complete the job of funding the government. It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal it wasn't easy but tonight our persistence has been worth it," Schumer said. "It is good for the American people that we have reached an agreement to fund the government tonight."
The White House said shortly after midnight that the Office of Management and Budget ceased its shutdown preparations, citing "a high degree of confidence" that Congress will "imminently pass" funding bills to keep the government open.
President Joe Biden will sign the legislation on Saturday, the White House added.
"Because obligations of federal funds are incurred and tracked on a daily basis, agencies will not shut down and may continue their normal operations," the White House said.
The bills passed in a House 286-134 vote earlier Friday afternoon, despite pushback from far-right members of the Republican caucus. More Democrats backed the bill than Republicans as more than 100 GOP lawmakers voted against it.
The $1.2 trillion package -- considered a major bipartisan effort in the highly divided House -- provides funding for six bills including Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor and Health and Human Services and Education, Legislative Branch and State and Foreign Operations.
If the package is passed by both chambers, the government will be funded through the end of the fiscal year, Sept. 30. It will also put an end to the continuing resolution cycle that has led to Congress nearly shutting the government down, at least partially, five times since October.
The government funding package was introduced in the House under suspension of the rules, which required a two-thirds majority vote for passage. That meant, yet again, House Speaker Mike Johnson needed to rely on Democrats to get the bills across the finish line -- a move that landed his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in hot water and led to his ouster as speaker last year.
Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., took to the floor during an hour of debate to urge lawmakers to vote yes.
"This is a good result for the American people in terms of standing up for their health, their safety, their education, their national security protection and, of course, above all else, their economic wellbeing," Jeffries said.
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Speaker Johnson is in a terrible position. The reason: Republicans have failed to win elections they should have.
So now, after doing the right thing and expelling George Santos (something the democrats in the Senate would not do with Sen Menendez) and having the former Speaker retire in disgust, and very recently, Republicans also had 2 House members resign effective immediately (obviously to hurt their own party and Trump), which leaves them with a majority of a single vote.
Speaker Johnson is now in effect leading a coalition in which the democrats, through their rigid unity hold the decisive vote.
We just passed another spending bill in the same way that Republicans vowed never to do again.
The Establishment has won.
We will have one party rule or nothing.
This country is done. All that is left is for China to prove it.
The hard right pack of foolish House Republicans can't seem to get it through their thick skulls that they have NO power of any kind at the moment. ALL of their efforts and grandstanding are pointless if they can't win elections, which should be their HIGHEST PRIORITY going forward. We're likely to have Trump win, take back the Senate, and lose the House at this rate
With the stupidity of the hard right, there's no guarantee that the GOP can win the White House or Senate either. I agree that some things need to change but there is no way they win votes by pushing for their version of perfection all at once and refusing to listen to the majority of voters.
Yep, the picked a car dealer in Ohio to run against a seasoned Dem politician.
It is a sign of the apocalypse, but I agree. The new gop controlled Congress has been in a fairly strong position to get a lot of what they wanted legislatively, but are ending up with bupkis. They now appear ineffectual, especially by doing nothing on the real issues voters really care about like immigration and adequate funding for Ukraine. It is not playing well outside of the far rightwing bubble...
Their House lead continues to shrink. One House Repub retired early this month and another retiring in Apr leaving a majority of 1.