$1.7 trillion bill to avert gov’t shutdown ends Congress’ year
WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives Friday passed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that averts an end-of-year government shutdown and funds the government until next fall.
A day after the Senate approved the bill in a bipartisan vote, the Democratic-held House voted 225-201 along mostly party lines to send it to President Biden’s desk.
“This bill is further proof that Republicans and Democrats can come together to deliver for the American people,” Biden said in a statement. “I’m looking forward to continued bipartisan progress in the year ahead.”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) was the only Democrat to vote against the bill, citing increases in funding for immigration enforcement without comprehensive reforms.
Nine Republicans, most of them leaving Congress, voted in favor.
Lawmakers were racing to get the bill approved before a partial government shutdown would have kicked in at midnight Friday.
Democrats and moderate Republicans wanted to lock in government funding before a new GOP-controlled House next year could make it harder to find compromises.
The bill passed over howls of opposition by GOP Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)
“This is a monstrosity,” said McCarthy, who is seeking to shore up his support with far-right-wing colleagues. “It’s one of the most shameful actions I have ever seen in this body.”
Scores of lawmakers from both parties have already left town for the holiday and are expected to vote by proxy in a system set up to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
The bill includes about $45 billion in additional aid to Ukraine to help it battle the Russian invasion. Some Republicans strongly oppose that assistance, which heightened Democratic and moderate Republican urgency to include it in the bill before the GOP takes control of the
House on Jan. 1.
The bill includes last-second amendments and $1 billion to extend health care for 9/11 survivors and to boost compensation for the families of people who were killed in the attacks.
Schumer had been unable to attach a larger measure that would have ended the health fund’s shortfall permanently, but the amendment that passed was expected to delay any crisis until at least 2027.
The other measure was everything Schumer and Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey had hoped for: $3 billion to help spouses and children of people slain on 9/11 get the same compensation as more distant relatives.
Both of those 9/11-related measures were omitted from the original Senate compromise bill and were added in a final round of bipartisan haggling.
The bill also contains $40 billion in emergency spending in the U.S., mostly to assist communities recovering from natural disasters.
And it includes scores of policy changes that lawmakers sought to include in what is going to be the last major bill of the Congress, otherwide they would have had to start from scratch next year in a divided Congress where Republicans will be returning to the majority in the House.
A key example was a revision to election law that aims to prevent future presidents and candidates from trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act was in response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to get Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
The bill allowed Congress to follow through on some of the most consequential bills it had passed over the past two years, such as a measure aiming to boost computer chip production in the U.S. and another to expand health care services to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.
Some $5 billion was provided to help the Veterans Administration implement some of the changes called for in the PACT Act, and the amount of money provided specifically for VA health care soared 22% to nearly $119 billion.