Lawmakers in Washington are set to rush Friday to authorize a $1.2 trillion spending deal that would avert any partial government shutdown, as a midnight deadline looms.
The deal — hammered out by Democratic leadership in the Senate, GOP leadership in the House and President Biden — must make it through the House and then the Senate on Friday to meet the deadline.
Lawmakers were likely to meet the deadline, House aides said Thursday. But there were some concerns that far-right Republicans in the chamber might torpedo the bill at the last minute, potentially prompting a limited government shutdown.
The six-bill spending package would keep the government humming into September. Both parties said they had emerged from negotiations with victories.
Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has hailed the package as an important step to invest in the military and strengthen the Homeland Security Department’s efforts to seal the border.
“House Republicans have achieved significant conservative policy wins, rejected extreme Democrat proposals, and imposed substantial cuts to wasteful agencies,” Johnson said in a statement.
The GOP also managed to secure a freeze on U.S. funding for the embattled U.N. relief agency in Gaza, UNRWA. The agency has been the target of criticism after Israel said at least 12 UNRWA staffers participated in Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attacks in southern Israel. (UNRWA said it fired the staffers.)
Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent Vermont progressive, has branded members of the GOP a “starvation caucus,” referencing the looming famine in Gaza.
“Tens of thousands of people are starving,” Sanders said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “UNRWA is trying to feed them.”
Still, the Democratic Party celebrated what it described as success in staving off GOP cuts to areas including education that would have inflicted pain on American families.
Even if lawmakers miss their deadline, they would still have the weekend to authorize the deal before Monday, when some government workers would face the possibility of furloughs if there is a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Brooklyn Democrat, said on the Senate floor Thursday that the deal represented “good news that comes in the nick of time.”
“It will extinguish any more shutdown threats for the rest of the fiscal year. It will avoid the scythe of budget sequestration. And it will keep the government open without cuts or poison pill riders,” Schumer said. “It’s now the job of the House Republican leadership to move this package ASAP.”
He joked that Sen. Patty Murray, the Washington Democrat who chairs the Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Susan Collins, the Maine Republican who serves as the committee’s vice chair, may not have gotten a wink of sleep since Saturday.
In their own joint statement, Murray and Collins called on lawmakers to approve the spending package, which they said would “invest in the American people, build a stronger economy, help keep our communities safe, and strengthen our national security.”
“There is zero need for a shutdown or chaos,” said the statement. “Members of Congress should waste no time in passing these six bills.”
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