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Congressional leaders announced a deal to keep the government open Wednesday evening, saying they "are in agreement that Congress must work in a bipartisan manner to fund our government." House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar says “it’s a huge problem” that the short-term bill proposed by Republicans to avert a government shutdown does not include funding for Ukraine. “What I think we ought to do is to fund the government at a level that cuts our spending year over year, that secures our border,” said Representative Bob Good of Virginia, the chairman of the Freedom Caucus. It was evident from the start that Mr. Johnson would need to rely on Democratic votes to pass any spending bill in the House, cobbling together the same coalition that Mr. McCarthy used in September to avert a government shutdown — a move that led to his ouster. The two-step proposal would fund part of the government until Jan. 19, and the rest until Feb. 2.
BREAKING: House passes spending bill to avert government shutdown. The bill is now headed to the Senate
Johnson emerged from days of testy meetings behind closed doors at the Capitol to read a terse statement. Just months on the job, the new speaker is trying to set the record straight that he will not renege on the budget deal he made earlier this week. But in his first big test as the new leader, he has yet to show how he will quell the revolt from his right flank that ousted his predecessor. Lawmakers will then have two more weeks to pass the other six spending bills to fully fund the government until September. "I'm happy to inform the American people there will be no government shutdown on Friday," Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said. "Now let us finish the job of funding the government so we don't have to do this again."
House Republicans unveil their plan to avert a government shutdown next week - NBC News
House Republicans unveil their plan to avert a government shutdown next week.
Posted: Sat, 11 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
Increases for education
To almost lose the majority of his conference underscores the challenges facing the new speaker and signals the difficulty he will have in striking a deal that will not alienate many of his GOP colleagues. They are clamoring for deeper non-defense spending cuts and myriad conservative policy mandates. The federal government is operating under funding levels approved last year by a Democratic-led House and Senate. Facing a government shutdown when the fiscal year ended Sept. 30, Congress passed a 47-day continuing resolution that funds the government through Nov. 17, but the fallout was severe.
House Passes Plan to Avert Government Shutdown TIME - TIME
House Passes Plan to Avert Government Shutdown TIME.
Posted: Tue, 14 Nov 2023 08:00:00 GMT [source]
McCarthy’s plan collapses, shutdown almost certain
“Some of my colleagues would see that this government would shut down and don’t care how hurtful that would be,” DeLauro said. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said Americans expect Congress to govern and work in a bipartisan fashion. Johnson has insisted he will stick with the deal, and centrists in the party have stood behind him. They say that changing course now would be going back on his word and would weaken the speaker in future negotiations.
Speaker Johnson Defends Plan to Fund Government and Avert Shutdown
Moving the spending bills without passing a rule would be risky, since passage would then require support from two-thirds of the House — meaning Democrats would need to sign on. But during Friday’s call, Johnson pushed back on the year-long CR, raising concerns about cuts to defense spending, the sources said. A senior administration official who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity said much of the defense increase would go to raise pay for service members. Biden cited several of the new initiatives in brief comments to reporters Friday afternoon, saying he hoped to “get some bipartisan support” for the spending. The increase in domestic spending would expand programs on health, education, housing, scientific research and climate change, reflecting the priorities of the new administration.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky predicted on Fox News on Thursday that the motion has a “decent chance” of passing the Senate. While Biden could veto the measure, Republicans would consider the roll call vote a victory. After the vaccine amendment failed, the Senate approved the government spending bill, 69 to 28.
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Earlier this week, members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus urged Johnson to back a year-long stopgap bill unless he can secure conservative policy riders. The Freedom Caucus likes the idea of a full-year CR because under last year's bipartisan debt deal, a 1% cut would kick in if all of the appropriations bills are not passed by the end of April. The administration officials who briefed reporters did not say what Biden’s total spending request would be, saying the full budget would be released later this spring. In the current fiscal year, the federal government is projected to spend about $5.8 trillion; the bulk of that covers entitlement benefits for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, which are automatically funded. The first installment of Biden’s budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1 asks for just over $1.5 trillion for so-called discretionary spending — the roughly one-quarter of federal outlays governed by annual appropriations laws. Slightly more than half of the money would go to domestic programs, and the rest to national security.
Since Congress resumed from the holiday break, Johnson has been holed up in his office at the Capitol receiving a steady stream of Republican lawmakers trying to force his hand. “Our top-line agreement remains,” Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, said, referring to the budget accord reached January 7. House Democrats are still combing over the stopgap bill to figure out if they support it, Aguilar said. "Look, if someone wants to try to remove me because I stood for the American public, for the troops to make sure they got paid ... to make sure the border agents got paid while we continue to do our work, I welcome that vote," McCarthy said.
The House suspended its rules to pass the plan, raising the threshold for passage to two-thirds of the House. That meant Johnson, who was elected to lead the House just three weeks ago, had to rely on votes from dozens of Democratic lawmakers. Uncertainty about the bill's fate was cleared up just before the vote on its passage, when Democratic leaders said in a joint statement they support it. Four of the 12 appropriations bills — which would provide funding for agencies covered by Agriculture, Military Construction-Veterans Affairs, Energy-Water and Transportation-Housing and Urban Development — face the Friday deadline. The remaining eight appropriation bills, covering critical agencies like the Defense, State and Justice departments, face a March 8 deadline.
Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska said he would oppose the ouster of Johnson from the House's top job. "I am not going to support it. She can pull it -- it's her right -- but I am not going to support it," Rep. Norman said. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina said he has not heard of any movement on her motion vacate effort.
This means Democrats have now put it on the record that they would save Johnson if a motion to vacate is brought to the floor for a vote. Johnson said in reaction to Moody's announcement that House Republicans are committed to working in a bipartisan fashion for fiscal restraint, beginning with the introduction of a debt commission. Underscoring the concerns about the possibility of a shutdown, the credit rating agency Moody's Investors Service lowered its outlook on the U.S. government's debt on Friday to "negative" from "stable," citing the cost of rising interest rates and political polarization in Congress.
Money for civil rights enforcement and efforts to combat violence against women also would get large boosts. Catering to his hard-right flank, McCarthy had returned to the spending limits the conservatives demanded back in January as part of the deal-making to help him become the House speaker. The White House has brushed aside McCarthy’s overtures to meet with President Joe Biden after the speaker walked away from the debt deal they brokered earlier this year that set budget levels.
The request also includes a 21% increase in the budget for immigration judges, enough for 100 additional positions, part of an effort to cut a backlog that has often kept migrants waiting as long as two years for an immigration hearing. Biden would also increase the budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention by nearly one-third to $8.7 billion. Administration officials said the increase, the largest in nearly two decades, would aim to restore a public health agency that faltered badly in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republicans, with the support of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, were hoping to tap into opposition to the Biden administration’s mandate, which requires workers to be vaccinated against the coronavirus or tested weekly for infection. Johnson and the other leaders, Democrats and Republicans in the House and Senate, picked up where they left off and reached a top-line deal at the start of the year that the speaker is now trying to have approved. Republican Representative Andy Biggs of Arizona said in floor remarks that Republicans should "shut the government down until you shut the border down." "I just can’t imagine the House wants to relive the madness,” said Representative French Hill of Arkansas, who had helped McCarthy negotiate the initial agreement with Biden and the other leaders. "There's really no ability to block bills that are passed under suspension that the Democrats want to pass," he said, referring to a procedure that limits debate and requires two-thirds of members to vote to pass a bill. The Senate is using a procedural tactic called a "live quorum call," which requires all of the senators to physically go to the floor, to delay their procedural vote on their own version of a stopgap spending bill.
The bill, which runs for 4,155 pages, includes about $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding and would last through the end of the fiscal year in September. “It’s Groundhog Day in the House chamber all the time, every day, yet again spending money we don’t have,” Roy said. Deeply reported insights into legislation, politics and policy from Sacramento, Washington and beyond.
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