Congress OKs temporary spending bill to avoid shutdown
WASHINGTON » The Republican- led Congress narrowly passed a temporary spending bill Thursday to avert a government shutdown, doing the bare minimum in a sprint toward the holidays and punting disputes on immigration, health care and the budget to next year.
The measure passed the House on a 231-188 vote over Democratic opposition and then cleared the Senate, 66- 32, with Democrats from Republicanleaning states providing many of the key votes. President Donald Trump is expected to sign themeasure.
The stopgap legislation would keep the government from closing down at midnight today. It has traversed a tortured path, encountering resistance from the GOP’s most ardent allies of the military, as well as opposition from Democrats who demanded but were denied a vote on giv- ing immigrants brought to the country as children and in the country illegally an opportunity to become citizens.
The wrap-upmeasure allows Republicans controlling Washington to savor their win on this week’s $1.5 trillion tax package — even as they kick a full lineup of leftover work into the new year. Congress will return in January facing enormous challenges on immigration, the federal budget, health care and national security along with legislation to increase the government’s authority to borrow money.
Each item is sure to test the unity that Republicans are enjoying now.
Democrats had pressed for adding their priorities to the measure, but once rebuffed on immigration they worked to keep the bill mostly free of add- ons, figuring that they’ll hold greater leverage later.
Among the items left behind was $81 billion worth of disaster aid, which passed the House on a bi- partisan 251- 169 tally but stalled in the Senate. The measure would have brought this year’s tally for aid to hurricane victims in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean, as well as fire-ravaged California, to more than $130 billion. But both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate want changes, and it was among the items Democrats sought to hold onto for leverage next year.
“Democrats want to make sure that we have equal bargaining, and we’re not going to allow things like disaster relief go forward without discussing some of the other issues we care about,” said powerful Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.
Immigration is among the most difficult issues confronting lawmakers in January, thrust upon them in September after Trump rescinded a Barack Obama order giving these socalled Dreamers protection against deportation, though he gave Congress a March deadline to come up with a legislative solution.
Trump and Republicans are pushing formore border security and other immigration steps in exchange.
Also left unfinished were bipartisan efforts to smash budget limits that are imposing a freeze on the Pentagon and domestic agencies, a long-term extension of the popular Children’s Health Insurance Program for 9 million low-income kids and Senate legislation aimed at stabilizing health insurance markets.
Lawmakers struggled to achieve the must- do: a $2.1 billion fix for an expiring program that pays for veterans to seek care outside the Department of Veterans Affairs system; a temporary fix to ensure states facing shortfalls from the Children’s Health Insurance Program won’t have to purge children from the program; and a short-term extension for an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists.