House Dems propose stopgap bill to prevent shutdown

WASHINGTON — House Democrats released a temporary governmentwide funding bill Monday to forestall a shutdown and give negotiators through Dec. 20 to try to hash out details of more than $1.4 trillion worth of unfinished spending legislation.

The legislation faces a House vote Tuesday as Congress races to act before a midnight Thursday deadline to prevent a shutdown.

The measure contains an assortment of technical provisions to ensure spending on the decennial U.S. Census can ramp up despite delays in the agency’s full-year funding bill. It also reverses a planned cut in highway spending next year, and offers greater assurances about funding a 3.1% pay raise for the military that takes effect Jan. 1.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the Senate will pass the measure by Thursday and said President Donald Trump has indicated he’ll sign it. Trump sparked last winter’s record 35-day partial shutdown amid a battle over his long-promised border wall.

Nevertheless, a fight is again underway over

Trump’s increasingly large demands for wall funding, and the issue is the main roadblock in wrapping up this year’s round of spending bills.

At issue is follow-on legislation to implement the details of this summer’s hard-won budget agreement, which distributed budget increases to the Pentagon and domestic agencies.

Democrats are complaining that agreeing to wall funding demands will mean shortchanging programs such as health care and education.