Conservatives balk as Senate passes $1.7 trillion spending bill
The Senate approved a bipartisan $1.7 trillion funding package for government Thursday. It was sent to the House for final approval before Friday’s midnight shutdown deadline.
The legislation was passed by 68 to 29 votes. It is expected to be approved by the House on Thursday or Friday, before being sent to President Biden.
The bill, worth $1.7 trillion, funds the federal government until September next year and will be Congress’ last business of the year.
The measure includes $773 billion to spend on non-defense discretionary spending, and $858 billion to fund defense funding. This is nearly 10% more than the previous year. It also includes $45 billion for Ukraine and repeals the COVID-19 mandate by the Administration for the military.
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After a border policy battle, the Senate approved the legislation. Conservatives lamented that the price tag was inefficient and ill-timed before Republicans take control of the House.
In an attempt to avoid a shutdown, Congress passed the 4,155-page document in the Senate just two days after its release. This was in order to allow lawmakers to return home for the holidays in time to be able to escape winter storms.
“It is far too easy for Congress not to adhere to its own rules to prevent reckless spending. Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, stated that there wasn’t enough time to read the entire bill. “The bill and the process ignore soaring inflation and rising interest rates, as well as our ballooning debt of $31 billion. Enough is enough.
Republicans and Democrats offered fifteen amendments, which was a series votes that they had agreed to use to speed up the legislation.
A number of amendments were passed. These included measures to expand workplace accommodations for pregnant women, mothers with newborns who require breastfeeding, and allowing states to use COVID-19 relief money for infrastructure projects.
After a request by GOP Senator Mike Lee of Utah, proceedings were delayed. Lee demanded a simple majority vote to preserve Title 42. This Trump-era immigration policy allows the U.S. more easily to turn away asylum seekers at its border.
Title 42 was temporarily halted by the Supreme Court from expiring this week. The lawmakers are concerned that illegal crossings of the southern border will be worsened without it. However, the inclusion of Title 42 within the spending bill would have hampered the chances of the overall measure passing the Democratic-led House.
Senate Democrats reached an agreement to allow a simple majority vote for Mr. Lee’s amended, and also allowed a vote on similar amendments from Sens. Jon Tester (Maine Democrat) and Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona Independent), required 60 votes. Both were prevented from passing the agreement, but it allowed lawmakers to vote on a message.
Some provisions in the spending package are controversial for Republicans. These include thousands of earmarks from both sides of the aisle worth almost $10 billion and an increase of $570 million to $11.3B for FBI. This provision was criticized by House Republicans, who intend to investigate the bureau for widespread misconduct, anticonservative bias, and politicized investigations.
The bill will also create a $3.6million “Michelle Obama Trail” in Georgia and a “Speaker Nancy Pelosi Federal Building” there.
The legislation caused a split in the GOP. House Republicans called on their Senate counterparts for funding to be canceled next month, when they have the majority.
The Senate Republicans rejected this idea and suggested that Kevin McCarthy, the House GOP leader, would not be able to navigate the political waters to avoid a shutdown.
According to Senator Minority Leader Mitch McConnell the current deal was as good or better than it could get.
The Kentucky Republican stated that he was proud of the fact that the bill, which included a Democratic president, Democratic House and Democratic Senate, achieved essentially all of his priorities.
