U.S. House Democrats introduce bill to fund government until November 21
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a stopgap government funding bill on Wednesday that would maintain current spending levels until Nov. 21 and avoid a government shutdown when funding expires at the end of this month.
A vote is expected in the House on Thursday, Democratic aides said.
The measure was the result of talks between both parties in both chambers. House majority leader Steny Hoyer said earlier on Wednesday that he hoped Senate passage would swiftly follow approval by the House.
"Once we pass the (continuing resolution) ... I'm hopeful that the Senate will take it up, that we'll have agreement and that we will send it to the president, that the president will sign it," said Hoyer, the No. 2 House Democrat.
In July, Congress passed a two-year budget and debt deal that authorized discretionary defence and non-defence programs, but lawmakers still need to pass annual legislation to fund agencies and avoid a government shutdown at the end of the month.
Last December and January, the government shuttered for more than a month after President Donald Trump initially refused to sign a spending bill if it did not include funding for a wall along the U.S. southern border with Mexico, one of his signature campaign promises.
The bill requires that the Department of Agriculture make a report to Congress by the end of October on payments made to U.S. farmers under the Trump administration's trade war mitigation programme, a Democratic aide said. Payments to foreign-owned companies will have to be listed, he said.
The bill does not include any changes relating to Trump's immigration policies. Some liberal Democrats had proposed not replenishing projects at the Department of Homeland Security that Trump had defunded in order to pay for a border wall, but such provisions were not included in an effort to get a bill that would pass both the Democratic-controlled House and the Republican-run Senate.
Hoyer said lawmakers would still debate some of the border policy issues this autumn.
Once the funding bill is passed, "I think we’re going to have some big fights with reference to things that we care very passionately about, including how people are treated at the border," Hoyer said.
The measure also includes funding Democrats sought for public-health centres and for the Medicaid healthcare programme in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, a summary of the legislation said.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell, David Morgan and Makini Brice; Editing by Peter Cooney and Leslie Adler)
