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Erica Werner
Congress reporter focused on economic policy
The Senate on Tuesday passed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government in place until December 7, to avoid a slowdown in the government and postpone the fight for funding President Trump's wall after the election. midterm.
The short-term bill was attached to a broad budget program containing 2019 funding for the Pentagon, as well as for the departments of Labor, Health and Social Services and the United States. education. GOP leaders designed the package to combine key Republican and Democratic priorities in an attempt to garner overwhelming bipartisan support. The package also aims to satisfy Trump's wish to increase military spending.
The 93-7 vote took place less than two weeks before the September 30 deadline, when government funding will expire unless Congress and Trump intervene.
The legislation would keep the government open by funding agencies, whose budgets were not paid by the deadline, at the current level, until December 7.
"This is necessary to ensure we do not face a government shutdown in the event that we do not finish our work on the remaining bills," said Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) Committee.
The House is expected to pass the bill next week, but it is not certain that Trump will sign the measure.
Legislation will not increase funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which funds the construction of the wall along the United States-Mexico border.
The president has played several times with the closure of the government to try to obtain more funds for the border wall, sometimes stating that there would be no closure and that others would say he would like to welcome him. . Congressional Republicans are convinced that a shutdown just before the deadlines would be disastrous.
Over the weekend, Trump blasted Republican leaders on the subject by writing on Twitter: "When will Republican leaders learn that they are being played as a fiddle by Democrats on border security and building from the wall? Without borders, we have no country. With Open Borders, which Democrats want, we only have crime! Finish the wall!
Trump repeatedly promised during the campaign that Mexico would pay for the wall.
Senate Democrats have agreed to $ 1.6 billion for the Trump Wall in 2019, but this is far from the $ 5 billion that Trump wants. Convinced that they do not have the votes in the Senate to get Trump money as he wishes, the GOP leaders decided to postpone the fight over Trump's signature campaign until after the mid-election. -mandate.
In total, the Pentagon and Labor-HHS spending bills account for more than 60% of all discretionary spending – the portion of the $ 4 trillion federal budget that Congress distributes each year. This does not include so-called "mandatory" spending programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, that operate without annual Congressional appropriations.
The Pentagon's budget for 2019 would be $ 606.5 billion under the law passed Tuesday, an increase of $ 17 billion from 2018.
Funding for labor, health and social services would be $ 178 billion, an increase of $ 1 billion from 2018 and an additional $ 11 billion requested by Trump in its budget for 2019. Congress approves, but it is the price demanded by Democrats for accepting big increases in military spending sought by Republicans and Trump.
Although Congress is once again close to the end of the fiscal year without completing the 12 mandatory spending bills that fund all government agencies, the situation still represents a major improvement over budget dysfunction in recent years.
Congress did not pass its 2018 bills until March, months after the start of the fiscal year and after two brief government rulings. The bills were finally crushed into a huge $ 1.3 trillion "omnibus" that Trump only reluctantly signed, after threatening for the first time to veto it.
The President promised then that he would never sign such a bill. This presidential threat prompted lawmakers to take faster action on spending, which has been consolidated into smaller "minibus" bills. One such package of three tickets was sent to Trump last week and the Defense-HHS "minibus" is the next step.
"Today's bill reflects the priorities I see on both sides of the Capitol and on both sides of the aisle," said Senator Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), Member of the Credits Committee. "By the way, this responds to the president's request to no longer want omnibus bills."
Measures on the seven outstanding bills can be postponed to December 7 under legislation passed by the Senate on Thursday, though congressional officials are still trying to complete work on four more by Sept. 30 – not to mention that of the Department of Homeland Security.
Although leaders of both parties hailed Tuesday's vote, some conservatives lamented the result. Many conservative priorities have been excluded from the law on labor, health and education spending, as Senate Democrats have an effective veto right over spending bills that require 60 votes in the first place. Senate.
Conservative priorities rejected in the final agreement included provisions to block funding for Planned Parenthood, to block funding for the Affordable Care Act and to block funding for fetal tissue research.
"Congressional spending bills will not contain any new reforms protecting unborn children or removing federal taxpayers from abortion," said Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah), who voted "no".
Legislation also includes wording from Democrats to address the issue of family separations at the border, including a provision directing the HHS secretary to submit a family reunification plan to Congress.
The package approved on Tuesday also includes a short-term reauthorization, until December 7, of the Violence Against Women Act. Democrats have asked for re-authorization in the longer term.
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