Senate Passes One-Week Spending Bill to Avert Saturday Shutdown

Erik Wasson
·3 min read
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(Bloomberg) -- The Senate on Thursday night passed a one-week government funding bill intended to avert a Saturday shutdown, sending the measure to President Joe Biden for his signature.

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The 71 to 19 vote on the stopgap bill followed House passage of the measure on Wednesday night.

The bill gives negotiators another week to hash out agreements on specific funding levels for federal agencies and programs in the roughly $1.7 trillion fiscal 2023 spending package.

“For the last two years, the 117th Congress has not had a single government shutdown. Not one. Not even for a day,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said. “I hope we don’t start now, just as we approach the finish line. Recent history shows that those who risk shutdowns with hopes of scoring political points ultimately lose in the end.”

The Senate rejected two Republican amendments. One would have cut funding for the Internal Revenue Service and another would have extended the stopgap to March 10.

Democrats and Senate Republicans earlier this week struck a deal on an outline for the omnibus appropriations bill. That measure will fund defense activities at roughly $858 billion, a $76 billion increase from current levels. An impasse over spending for domestic agencies was broken when Democrats agreed to limit increases in domestic spending to those Biden requested.

House Republican leaders decided not to participate in the negotiations. Kevin McCarthy, the chamber’s GOP leader, has urged Congress to delay action on the bills until Republicans take over the House on Jan. 3.

McCarthy, who is struggling to garner enough votes to become speaker in the next Congress, has pledged that the GOP would battle to lower domestic spending, slash the IRS auditing budget and bolster border security once it has power.

McCarthy argues that the voters handed the House to his party in order to cut spending and inflation, and that waiting would be most fair to their demands.

Most Senate Republicans, worried that the party’s hard line would lead to a lengthy impasse over the budget next year, have opted instead to try to cut a deal with Democrats that guarantees the defense increases and Ukraine aid they want now.

“I hope they are able to produce text of a bipartisan government funding bill that can pass the Senate before our hard deadline next Thursday,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on the Senate floor. “Otherwise, I will support pivoting next week to a short-term continuing resolution into the new year.”

Before the Senate vote on Thursday, Andrew Bates, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that “it’s encouraging that Senate Republicans are demonstrating their interest in avoiding a Christmas shutdown and negotiating with their Democratic colleagues to find compromises on both sides and to put governing and the American economy above partisan politics.”

“At the same time,” he added, “it’s concerning to see House Republicans venomously attack Republicans in the Senate for doing so.”

Lawmakers are also negotiating what remaining bills could be attached the the final must-pass spending package before the current Congress adjourns. A package of business tax breaks is looking doubtful as Democrats continue to demand an expanded child tax credit in exchange.

Senator Patty Murray of Washington State, the chair of the Senate Health committee, in an interview said that she is still fighting to attach a group of health-related bills, including extensions of Food and Drug Administration user fees and legislation to strengthen mental heath services.

She also wants to include a bill to bolster FDA oversight over laboratory tests. The so-called Valid Act would create a new category of medical products called in-vitro clinical tests, allowing the FDA to oversee tests regardless of whether they came from clinical laboratories or from commercial companies.

The medical device industry has embraced the FDA’s proposal, but the clinical lab industry decried it as double regulation.

--With assistance from Alexander Ruoff and Jennifer Jacobs.

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