Senate Takes Lead on Spending Bills to Prevent Government Shutdown
As the possibility of a humiliating October government shutdown grows, top Democrats in the U.S. Senate will attempt to gain the upper hand over House Republicans in negotiations over government financing when the chamber reconvenes on Tuesday.
In the Democratic-controlled chamber, a bipartisan group of senators was working on President Joe Biden’s proposal for a stopgap budget package to support federal agencies until agreements could be reached on the full fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
While their House Appropriations Committee has been producing bills with only Republican support, the Senate Appropriations Committee has supported the 12 separate spending bills that would finance the majority of government operations for fiscal 2024.
The Senate has so far kept the $1.59 trillion discretionary spending budget that President Biden and leading House Republican Kevin McCarthy agreed to this spring.
Nevertheless, House conservatives are pushing for reductions below what their leader committed to. In order to help decrease the nation’s $31.4 trillion debt, House Republicans have minimized the risks of a government shutdown, saying it might be used as leverage to secure deeper spending cuts.
There aren’t many senators or House members who have demonstrated this level of interest. Republicans in the House disagree on a number of issues, including the amount of additional humanitarian help for Ukraine and the size of the overall government spending.
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Stopgap Measure and Budget Negotiations
The House Freedom Caucus insisted on reducing discretionary spending for 2024 to the $1.47 trillion level from 2022, which is $120 billion less than what McCarthy and Biden agreed to.
The White House lambasted House Republicans for being prepared to abandon an agreement and cautioned that a shutdown may harm efforts to limit the importation of dangerous drugs, notably mentioning fentanyl, a drug frequently raised as a worry by Republicans.
As opposed to previous years’ funding battles, the Senate now seems ready to swiftly adopt the stopgap measure and then present a unified front to the House Republicans during negotiations on the longer-term bills, which may go into December.
The top Senate Republican, Mitch McConnell, along with nearly all of his fellow Republicans on the committee, have voted in favor of each of the 12 legislation advanced for the fiscal year 2024.
Prior to that, there were concerns about the 81-year-old lawmaker’s ability to remain in his leadership position when he became unsteady while delivering statements in public for the second time in a little over a month. McConnell, who sustained a concussion after a fall earlier this year, was given the all-clear to resume work on Thursday, according to the physician for Congress.
McCarthy will have to walk a fine line between maintaining the support of his hard-line right wing, which could demand for his removal at any time, and the necessity to carry out the most fundamental congressional role of funding government services.
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Source: Reuters