US House & Senate Pass Bill to Avert Shutdown

Facts

  • With a federal government shutdown deadline looming at midnight Friday, the Senate and House voted to pass a stopgap bill to fund the federal government through Dec. 16 and also provide more funding to Ukraine.
  • Senators were able to keep spending for federal agencies at current levels, as well as provide Ukraine with $12B for training, equipment and logistics support, humanitarian aid, and replenishment of US weapons and munitions, including $35M in nuclear preparedness funding.
  • The legislation had been held up by Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) over his proposed measures to expedite energy infrastructure projects in his home state, though he agreed to drop the measures in the face of bipartisan criticism.
  • The bill also includes relief funding for communities impacted by natural disasters, low-income home heating programs, addressing the Jackson, Miss. water crisis, and a reauthorization of the FDA's user fees for five years.
  • The bill didn't include additional funding related to COVID and monkeypox that Biden had requested. It did, however, transfer $3B from the Pentagon to the State Dept. for Afghan resettlement operations.
  • The bill passed the House by a vote of 230-201, and the Senate by 72-25, and was forwarded to Biden for final signature.

Sources: FOX News, Wall Street Journal, NPR Online News, and New York Post.

Narratives

  • Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by NBC. With everything going on around the world and in the US, this bill saved a lot of Americans from the catastrophe of a government shutdown. With the help of Senate Republicans, Democrats have kept vital federal agencies open while boosting aid to victims of both natural disasters at home and of war abroad. In this case, the bipartisan collaboration worked.
  • Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by FOX News. House Republicans were correct in voting against this bill, but to no avail, as the Senate GOP chose to side with the Democrats. Not only does this stopgap measure continue to fund anti-Republican institutions like the National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization, Mitch McConnel and his followers just voted to give Democrats more budgetary power ahead of the mid-terms. Unpopular initiatives were rammed through in the name of "bipartisan consensus."