Biden signs $1.7 trillion lump-sum spending bill to avoid government shutdown
President Joe Biden on Thursday signed a $1.7 trillion spending bill that the federal government would keep running through the end of the federal fiscal year in September 2023 and tens of billions of dollars in new aid to Ukraine for its fight against the Russian military.
Biden had to sign the bill by late Friday to avoid a partial government shutdown.
The Democrat-controlled House of Representatives passed Bill 225-201 just before Christmas, mostly along the party line. The vote in the House of Representatives came a day after the Democrat-led Senate voted 68 to 29 to pass the bill with significantly more Republican support.
Biden had said the passage was proof Republicans and Democrats can work together.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy, the House Republican leader who hopes to become speaker when a new session of Congress opens on Jan. 3, argued during the ground debate that the bill is overspending and doing too little to curb the illegal Immigration and stemming the flow of fentanyl into the US US from Mexico.
“This is a monstrosity that is one of the most shameful acts I have seen on this body,” McCarthy said of the legislation.
McCarthy is asking for support from staunch conservatives in the GOP faction, who have largely blasted the bill because of its size and scope. Republicans will have a narrow majority in the House of Representatives on Jan. 3, and several Conservative members have vowed not to vote for McCarthy as speaker.
The funding bill includes an approximately 6% increase in spending on domestic initiatives to $772.5 billion. Defense program spending will increase about 10% to $858 billion.
Passage was reached hours before funding for federal agencies expired. Lawmakers had approved two short-term spending measures to keep the government afloat and a third, funding the government until December 30, was passed last Friday. Biden signed it to ensure services would continue until Congress sends him the full-year measure, dubbed the omnibus bill.
The massive bill, which ran to more than 4,000 pages, includes 12 household bills, aid to Ukraine and disaster relief for communities recovering from natural disasters. It also includes numerous policy changes that lawmakers included in the final major bill under consideration by this session of Congress.
Lawmakers provided about $45 billion to Ukraine and NATO allies, more than even Biden had requested, an acknowledgment that future rounds of funding are not guaranteed if Republicans die next week after the party’s wins in the midterm elections Take control of the House of Representatives.
Although support for aid to Ukraine has been largely bipartisan, some House Republicans have opposed the spending, arguing that the money should be better spent on priorities in the United States.
McCarthy has warned that Republicans will not issue a “blank check” to Ukraine going forward.
The bill also includes about $40 billion in emergency spending, primarily to help U.S. communities recover from droughts, hurricanes and other natural disasters.
The White House said it received the bill from Congress late Wednesday afternoon. It was handed over to Biden for signature by White House staffers on a regular scheduled flight.
Biden signed the law into law Thursday in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where he is spending time with his wife Jill and other family members on the island of St. Croix. The Bidens are staying at the home of friends Bill and Connie Neville, the White House said. Bill Neville is the owner of US Viking, the maker of ENPS, a news production software system distributed by The Associated Press.
The bill also includes numerous policy changes that are largely unrelated to spending, but lawmakers have been working flat out behind the scenes to amend the bill, which was the last piece of legislation to emerge from this session of Congress. Otherwise, lawmakers supporting these changes would have had to start from scratch next year in a politically divided Congress where Republicans will regain control of the House and Democrats will continue to control the Senate.
One of the most notable examples was a historic overhaul of the federal election law to prevent a future president or presidential candidate from attempting to overturn an election.
The bipartisan revision of the Electoral Count Act is a direct response to then-President Donald Trump’s efforts to persuade Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to vote against confirming Biden’s victory on January 6, 2021, the day of Trump. Objecting-inspired riot on the Capitol.
Spending increases highlighted by Democrats included: a $500 increase in the maximum amount of Pell grants for low-income college students, a $100 million increase in state block grants for programs to prevent and treat drug abuse, a 22 percent increase in spending on veterans medical care and $3.7 billion in emergency relief for farmers and ranchers affected by natural disasters.
The bill also provides approximately $15.3 billion for more than 7,200 projects that lawmakers have requested for their home states and counties. Under the revised rules for funding community projects, also known as earmarking, lawmakers must submit their applications online and certify that they have no financial interest in the projects. Nevertheless, many fiscal conservatives criticize that earmarking leads to unnecessary spending.
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