*UPDATE* Senate has also passed the stopgap spending bill, sending it to President Donald Trump’s desk.
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a two-week spending bill that will beat the deadline of a government shutdown.
From The Hill:
House Republicans managed to pass the legislation mostly along party lines in the 235-193 vote, despite often coming short of securing a majority of the majority on measures to keep the government open in recent years.Fourteen Democrats voted for the measure and 18 Republicans voted no.The spending patch through Dec. 22 gives lawmakers time to negotiate a bipartisan budget deal. At that time, Congress is expected to pass another short-term patch so that appropriators can craft a spending package to keep federal agencies funded through the rest of the 2018 fiscal year.“I think it’s kind of just basic governing is keeping government going while we negotiate the final details,” said Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.).
It took until the last minute for Ryan to find support within the GOP to pass the bill. Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) didn’t want a short-term funding bill, but he really didn’t want the government to shutdown.
The conservative Freedom Caucus eventually agreed on a December 22 deadline after the GOP leaders agreed “to push for increased funding for defense programs through 2018 on the next spending bill.”
The GOP has the majority in the senate so it should not be a problem to push it through tomorrow. Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-WV) spokesman stated that “the senator was likely to vote in favor of the bill.”
The Democrats already have their demands ready to go for the next round of negotiations. From USA Today:
In the next round of spending talks, Democrats are hoping to negotiate legal protections for the nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children and had been shielded from deportation under an Obama-era executive order.President Trump reversed the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, in September but gave Congress six months to come up with a solution. Democrats and a growing number of Republicans say that Congress can’t wait until just before the deadline to find a solution.“January and February are not the most productive months in Washington … I don’t want the fate of these young people to be hung in the balance,” Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, who is one of the most vocal advocates of a solution for DACA recipients before the end of the year, said on a call with reporters Thursday.
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY