WASHINGTON – The House of Representatives cleared a $1.7 trillion omnibus spending measure less than 11 hours before a partial government shutdown would have occurred Friday night, preventing a funding lapse until September 30, 2019.
President Biden was unable to sign the bill into law before the 11:59 p.m. deadline due to the passage of the bill by a vote of 225-201, primarily along party lines, with one Democrat present. House and Senate both adopted a one-week measure to maintain existing government funding levels through December 30 — long enough for the post-vote administrative process to be completed and for Biden to sign the package early the following week.
The House took up the omnibus package after the Senate approved it Thursday afternoon by a vote of 68 to 29. The majority of House Republicans opposed the plan, preferring to pass short-term funding until the new majority of House Republicans is inaugurated in on January 3.
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tennessee) tweeted on Friday, “In 11 days, @HouseGOP will be in the majority, and @HouseAppropsGOP could negotiate a fair and economically sound financing plan for our nation.” “There is no reason to speed through an almost $2 trillion, 4,000-plus page spending spree. Our nation cannot continue spending at this rate.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is expected to become the next speaker on January 3, denounced the bill as “4,000 pages of pet projects, pork, and progressive priorities” and “one of the most disgraceful things I’ve ever witnessed in this body.”
“Guess what the price was? “They will estimate roughly $1.7 trillion,” McCarthy stated. “Guess when it was made public so the public could see how diligently the Democrats worked for them? It was two o’clock in the morning on the Tuesday before Christmas.”
In her farewell floor speech as the chamber’s Democratic leader, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) chastised her challenger for his “shameful” depiction, asking: “I can’t help but wonder, has he forgotten January 6?”
“This is a day of great patriotism as we revised the Electoral College Act of 1887 to deter future attempts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” she continued, alluding to the bill’s provisions that make it more difficult to question the outcomes of presidential elections.
Pelosi continued, “I rise in strong bipartisan support for this bipartisan, omnibus government funding package for us to consider today to prevent a government shutdown and, more importantly, to fulfill the needs of the American people.”
The spending plan allocates $858 billion to the Defense Department, leaving around $772.5 billion for discretionary non-defense programs. Friday morning, Vice President Biden signed the military spending measure, which repeals his administration’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members.
The 4155-page package includes $118.7 billion for the Veterans Administration, $40.6 billion to aid communities recover from natural disasters, and $39 billion for the Justice Department as the largest domestic expenditure items.
It also contained $44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO partners, and it was passed two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint session of Congress to request further funding.
By the time the vote occurred, dozens of legislators had already departed Washington, D.C. for the Christmas recess as a huge winter storm impeded travel across the nation. More than 150 representatives voted via proxy on the bill.
»House passes $1.7T spending bill with hours to go, avoiding shutdown«