On The Money — Congress races to keep the lights on
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Happy Thursday and welcome to On The Money, your nightly guide to everything affecting your bills, bank account and bottom line. Subscribe here: thehill.com/newsletter-signup.
Today's Big Deal: The House has passed a short-term funding deal in the face of a conservative shutdown threat. We'll also look at the latest jobless claims data and Democratic concern over supply chains.
But first, find out who was the first to endorse Dr. Oz.
For The Hill, we're Sylvan Lane, Naomi Jagoda and Aris Folley. Reach us at slane@thehill.com or @SylvanLane, njagoda@thehill.com or @NJagoda and afolley@thehill.com or @ArisFolley.
Let's get to it.
House sets up Senate shutdown showdown
The House on Thursday voted to pass a short-term spending bill to fund the government through mid-February, as lawmakers work quickly to avert a shutdown on Friday.
The House voted 221-212 to pass the continuing resolution (CR), which would allow the government to remain funded at the previous year's fiscal levels through Feb. 18 until lawmakers clinch a deal on a larger, bipartisan deal.
Only one Republican, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (Ill.), supported the bill, which now goes to the Senate. A number of conservative GOP lawmakers have sought to tie the legislation to a push to defund President Biden's COVID-19 vaccinate-or-test mandate for large employers.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) criticized the Republican-led push ahead of the vote on Thursday afternoon, claiming those behind the effort wanted to shut down "science."
What comes next: House Democrats were able to swiftly pass the bill despite Republican opposition, but the bill's path to passage in the evenly split Senate is not yet guaranteed. The bill will need at least 60 votes to clear the upper chamber's procedural hurdles, and any one senator could delay it.
Even so, the Senate is eying a vote on the CR by the end of the night. Stick with TheHill.com for the latest.
LEADING THE DAY
Conservatives offer shutdown offramp
A group of Senate conservatives are demanding a simple-majority vote on their push to defund President Biden's vaccine mandate for larger businesses in exchange for agreeing to expedite a short-term government funding deal.
The push by Sens. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) comes as Congress has until the end of Friday to pass a funding bill to keep the government open and prevent a shutdown. Because of Senate rules, and the time crunch, any one senator can force the chamber to miss that deadline.
The three GOP senators said on Thursday that they are willing to help speed up the funding bill, which would keep the government open through Feb. 18, if Senate leadership agrees to hold a vote on their proposal to defund Biden's mandate as an amendment to the funding bill.
The Senate took a similar vote during the debate over the last short-term government funding bill, but Republicans failed to get it into the bill. Every GOP senator voted for the amendment at the time, but they failed to get any Democratic votes and needed support from three-fifths of the Senate to get it into the September funding bill.
Democratic leaders haven't yet said if they are willing to give the conservatives a vote on their amendment at a simple-majority threshold.
The Hill's Jordain Carney has more here.
CLAIMS CASINO
Jobless claims rise, but remain below pre-pandemic levels
New claims for jobless benefits rose last week from the lowest level in more than 50 years, the Labor Department reported Thursday, but remained below pre-pandemic levels.
In the week ending Nov. 27, initial applications for unemployment totaled 222,000 when adjusted for seasonal factors.
Claims rose by 28,000 from the previous week's revised total of 194,000, the lowest number of new weekly jobless claims since November 1969.
While jobless claims have fallen steadily since October, analysts warned that last week's record-breaking fall was likely the result of seasonal adjustments overestimating how many workers would be laid off at the end of November. Even so, weekly jobless claims remained below the pre-pandemic level of 256,000 set the week of March 14, 2020 - shortly before the emergence of COVID-19 eliminated roughly 21 million jobs in the U.S.
Sylvan has more here.
SUPPLY CHAIN PAIN
House Democrats call on leaders to pass supply chain legislation
A group of House Democrats, some of whom are expected to face challenging reelection races next year, on Thursday called for the chamber to take up legislation to address supply chain disruptions amid concerns from Americans about inflation.
"As our constituents gather for the holiday season, it is imperative Congress acts to address the needs of the nation through additional action to specifically address the supply chain and resulting higher prices experienced by families across the country," the lawmakers said in a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.).
More than 20 House Democrats signed the letter, including Reps. Cindy Axne (Iowa), Susie Lee (Nev.) and Susan Wild (Pa.).
Naomi has more here.
Good to Know
Republicans are ramping up attacks on a key tax provision under discussion for President Biden's social spending package, even as Democrats have yet to reach a consensus among themselves on the issue.
Here's what else have our eye on:
Nearly half of Americans in a new Gallup poll reported that recent price increases are causing their family some degree of financial hardship, with 10 percent describing the hardship as severe.
A group of oil-producing countries and their allies known as OPEC+ on Thursday agreed to continue with its previously planned modest increase in oil production.
That's it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill's Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We'll see you tomorrow.
