Congress passes another short-term spending bill
WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday effectively evaded the last-minute threat of a government shutdown but stalled in its effort to provide disaster relief to victims of this year’s hurricanes and wildfires.
While both the House and the Senate were able to send a bill funding the government through Jan. 19 to President Donald Trump, the Senate decided to kick an $81 billion bill to pay for disaster relief to next year. The House had approved that relief earlier Thursday.
Promised bills to shield young immigrants from deportation and stabilize health insurance markets were left for another day as well.
The overall spending bill included a $2.85 billion down payment aimed at keeping the federal Children’s Health Insurance Program operational and reauthorized federal surveillance powers.
The final House vote was 231–188. The Ohio delegation’s four Democrats — Reps. Tim Ryan of Niles, Joyce Beatty of Jefferson Township, Marcy Kaptur of Toledo and Marcia Fudge of Cleveland — opposed it. Among Ohio Republicans, only Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Urbana, opposed it. Rep. Jim Renacci, R-Wadsworth, did not vote.
Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Upper Arlington, said he supported the bill in part because it keeps CHIP funding. “One of the primary responsibilities of Congress is to fund the government — shutting down is simply not an option for me,” he said.
In the Senate, which approved the measure 66-32, Sen. Rob Portman, R–Ohio, backed the funding while Sen. Sherrod Brown, D–Ohio, opposed it.
Prospects for the bill passing looked grim for a time after a group of defense hawks, including Rep. Mike Turner, R-Dayton, balked at defense spending levels in the overall bill.
Turner said the House GOP leadership had secured the hawks’ support for an earlier spending bill by promising that a December spending bill would include full-year defense funding. In a Wednesday night meeting on Capitol Hill, however, the GOP leadership acknowledged that there weren’t the votes to pass such a measure.
Instead, in a meeting Thursday morning, GOP leadership and defense hawks were able to agree on a short-term boost of $5 billion while Congress prepares for its new Jan. 19 deadline to pass another spending bill.
Turner also joined the majority of the state’s GOP House delegation in backing an $81 billion emergency spending bill aimed at paying for hurricane and wildfire relief. The bill passed 251–169, with 70 Democrats crossing the aisle to support the Republican bill. Fifty Republicans, including Reps. Warren Davidson of Troy, Steve Chabot of Cincinnati and Jordan, opposed that bill. Renacci also missed that vote.
All four Ohio Democrats in the House opposed it.
Though Republicans managed to escape the mostscathing criticism about the possibility that they’d allow the Children’s Health Insurance Program to expire just days after passing tax cuts criticized as disproportionately aiding large corporations and wealthy Americans, some Democrats said the CHIP patch was not enough.
Brown said the $2.85 billion in funding would effectively pay for the three months since the program has expired — basically, doling out back pay for unpaid obligations. “This provides no certainty to states that are running CHIP programs,” he said, speaking in front of a photo of Noble Lett, a Dublin first-grader who suffers from a rare genetic disorder. Lett’s mother, Crystal, came to D.C. in July to lobby for an extension of the CHIP program, telling Brown that the program helped make the difference between her family living a middle-class lifestyle and living under the poverty line.
“Congress had time to hand out massive tax cuts for rich Americans and big corporations, but they didn’t have time to help these families,” Brown said. “It’s a disgrace.”