The Senate and House passed a temporary funding bill today to push the government shutdown to December:
ABC NEWS – The Senate and House on Thursday afternoon passed a deal party leaders reached late Wednesday to avert a government shutdown that would have affected hundreds of thousands of federal workers and slammed an economy still struggling to recover from the pandemic, all with just hours left to stave off a crisis.
Under the deal, announced by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, senators dispensed with a handful of Republican amendments and then approved, 65-35, a temporary funding bill that not only averts a shutdown until Dec. 3, but also includes $28.6 billion in disaster aid for states ravaged by extreme weather and $6.3 billion to further assist Afghan refugees.
“The last thing the apparent American people need is for the government to grind to a halt,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday morning.
The House passed the Senate version of the stopgap measure later Thursday afternoon, 254-175 and was headed to President Joe Biden’s desk for his signature, just hours before the government technically runs out of money at the end of the day Thursday.
They always act as though government grinding to a halt would be armageddon, but it’s just not true. All essential portions of government still continue to operate.
But here’s the good news, which is indeed a Republican victory:
The bill does not include any provision to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, though, after Republicans steadfastly rejected any attempt to include it.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has continued to insist that his conference will not help raise the borrowing limit — or even expedite Democrats’ ability to do so alone – citing concerns about the majority party’s intention to pass trillions in new spending for social and climate policy. This, despite a debt ceiling increase paying for past, bipartisan debt.
Essentially what we have here is gridlock which has resulted in no raising of the debt ceiling, and that’s a wonderful thing.
But even better is how Democrats can’t even agree on passing their monumentally expensive agenda, which means they have gridlock within their own caucus. Which means they can’t really blame Republicans for their woes, and that is great news for the next election.