Senate Passes Spending Bill To Avoid Shutdown

C-SPAN

By a vote of 85-11, the Senate passed a spending bill in the wee hours of Saturday morning to avert a government shutdown.

Hours earlier, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved the bill, which will keep the government open until March, at which point, we’ll need to do this all over again because Congress is busted.

The bill now heads to President Joe Biden, who will sign the thing so it can become law.

In the House, the legislation required a two-thirds majority to pass because Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) fast-tracked the resolution by circumventing the House Rules Committee. It passed 366-34 thanks to 196 Democratic votes in favor. All 34 votes against were cast by Republicans.

On Wednesday, Johnson scrapped another funding bill after Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump came out against the measure. Johnson tried again on Thursday by putting a smaller bill on the floor, but that legislation came up well short of the votes necessary to pass.

The bill passed by the House did not include a provision – favored by Trump – to raise or eliminate the debt ceiling, which limits the amount of debt the federal government may incur.

Before passage, the Senate managed to reauthorize $190 million in funding for pediatric cancer research that Republicans stripped from the bill after Musk objected to the legislation.