Spending bill pushed through

Stopgap measure faces less-certain future in Senate

The stopgap spending bill’s approval by the House sets up what is likely to be a nailbiting Senate vote to avert a government shutdown. The current spending authority for government operations ends after midnight tonight. If not extended, many government offices would be shut.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans pushed through a stopgap spending bill Thursday evening, brushing off President Donald Trump’s last-minute ambiguity about the deal and setting up what is likely to be a nail-biting Senate vote to avert a government shutdown.

After teetering most of the day, the four-week spending measure won a pivotal endorsement from conservative lawmakers in the House Freedom Caucus, providing the votes needed amid strong Democratic opposition.

The debate next moves to the Senate, where the bill’s prospects are uncertain.

Conservative Republicans and defense hawks object to yet another temporary measure and want more stable funding. Democrats are rejecting the package without an immigration deal to protect so-called Dreamers, young immigrants illegally brought to the United States as children, from deportation.

Fearing a possible shutdown, Republicans and Democrats were already angling to blame each other if federal offices are shuttered for the first time since 2013, when Republicans closed the government in an unsuccessful bid to kill Obamacare.

The current spending authority for government operations ends after midnight Friday. If not extended, hundreds of thousands of federal workers would be furloughed and many — but not all — government offices would be shut down.

GOP leaders had been racing to cobble together what would be their fourth short-term funding bill since last fall.

The proposed extension to Feb. 16 includes six years of additional funding authorization for the Children’s Health Insurance Program for working-class kids, a provision added to help attract Democratic votes.

But most Democrats panned the measure. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California called the GOP bill a “bowl of doggy doo.”

Democrats are angry that the GOP bill lacks protections for the young immigrants covered by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program. Trump has said he will end the Obama-era DACA program, which offered the immigrants work permits and protection from deportation.

Although Trump has said he wants to help the young immigrants, he is also trying to get funding for his border wall with Mexico along with other immigration law changes in return. Talks on immigration continued Thursday behind closed doors.

Trump and GOP leaders in Congress have worked hard to blame Democrats for any potential shutdown, but Pelosi said Republicans bear responsibility because they control the government.

“This is one of the only times ever there’s been a shutdown when one party controlled the House, the Senate, the White House,” she said, noting that Trump has previously said a shutdown might not be a bad thing. “It’s really almost like an amateur hour.”

Even some Republicans are unconvinced about the GOP plan, either because it does not include increased funding for the Pentagon or because they want to reduce government spending on principle. Others also want help for DACA recipients or additional disaster aid for victims of the recent hurricanes and fires.

Republicans, with their slim 51-49 seat majority in the Senate, will likely need about a dozen Democrats to reach the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster, assuming some GOP senators object or miss the vote.

Trump didn’t help matters early Thursday when he suddenly tweeted against including the extension of the children’s insurance program. In a tweet, Trump said funding for the program should be part of “a long-term solution,” not the stopgap measure.

Some speculated that perhaps the president was not aware that the CHIP funding would be extended for six years, rather than the four weeks of the spending bill. The president had similarly undermined a House vote last week reauthorizing a federal surveillance program until House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., intervened and Trump reversed course.

By lunchtime, the administration tried to clarify the confusion, insisting that the president supports the current measure in the House. That was only after Ryan again spoke to the president by phone and the GOP whip, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, tweeted a rebuttal.

“I’ve spoken with the president,” Ryan said. “He does understand.”

In the final hour of negotiations before the House vote, Ryan met with the chairman of the Freedom Caucus, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C. Most of the group’s members agreed to back the spending bill in exchange for future votes — including on a “conservative” immigration bill that would likely include even tougher border security and other provisions, aides said. They also won a promise for an eventual House vote on increased military spending.

In remarks at the Pentagon on Thursday morning, Trump seemed resigned to a federal shutdown.

“It could happen,” he said. “We’ll see what happens. It’s up to the Democrats.”

SHAWN THEW/EPA House Speaker Paul Ryan walks through Statuary Hall on his way to the House floor to vote on the stopgap funding bill.