The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved a stopgap funding measure to avert a partial federal government shutdown at midnight, sending the legislation to the House of Representatives, where it also was expected to pass.
After congressional approval, and President Joe Biden signing it, the national government would have money – at current spending levels – to keep all its agencies open and operating through December 3. That will give lawmakers and the White House more time to negotiate budgets for the fiscal year that starts Friday.
The Senate vote was 65-35 to avert halting all but essential government operations
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said the legislation would maintain current funding levels across government agencies through December 3. It also would include $6.3 billion to help relocate Afghan refugees moving to the United States after Washington ended its two-decade war in Afghanistan last month, and $28.6 billion to help eastern and southern states recover from devastating hurricanes and western states from raging wildfires.
“With so many critical issues to address, the last thing the American people need right now is a government shutdown,” Schumer said in remarks on the Senate floor Wednesday. “This proposal will prevent one from happening.”
The House also is set Thursday to vote on a trillion-dollar infrastructure plan to repair the country’s aging roads and bridges and expand broadband internet service throughout the U.S.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to go ahead with the vote even though some progressive Democrats have promised to vote against it until they receive assurances that political moderates in their party, and two key centrist senators, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, also will support a separate, and much more expensive measure, to greatly expand the country’s social safety net programs.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. speaks during her weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill, Sept. 30, 2021.
“We’re on the path to winning the vote” on the infrastructure plan, Pelosi told reporters on Thursday morning. The bipartisan legislation already has been approved by the Senate.
Senate Republicans earlier this week blocked passage of another measure to avert the possible partial government shutdown because it also included a provision to suspend the country’s long-term debt limit, which they are trying to force Democrats to adopt on their own without Republican support.
But Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans would support a measure that only deals with the funding package to keep the government open into the new fiscal year that starts Friday.
There have been 21 partial U.S. government shutdowns since 1976, including three during the single, four-year White House term of President Donald Trump.
By law, U.S. government agencies must have congressionally authorized funding in order to operate. Shutdowns have usually occurred when Congress and the White House cannot agree on funding levels for specific operations or whether the programs in question deserve to be funded at all.
Without funding during the shutdowns, many government operations have been halted, such as pension payments to older Americans, the processing of income tax refunds and accessibility to national parks. However, national security operations have been deemed essential and workers have stayed on the job, even as their paychecks might be delayed.
Additionally, Pelosi told Democratic colleagues the House would vote soon on suspending the national government’s debt limit.
Even if the House passes the legislation, though, its fate in the politically divided Senate, with 50 Republicans and 50 Democrats, is uncertain.
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Senate Republicans already twice this week have rejected efforts to suspend the debt limit, saying it is an effort by opposition Democrats to clear the path for the massive new spending plan to expand social safety net programs the most since the 1960s.
Republicans uniformly oppose the Democratic proposals championed by President Joe Biden.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen told congressional leaders on Tuesday that the government is likely to run out of money to pay its bills by October 18 if Congress does not suspend the debt limit or raise it substantially beyond its current $28.4 trillion total.