U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), holds a news conference to debate the expanded Democratic majority within the Senate for the subsequent Congress, on Capitol Hill in Washington, December 7, 2022.Â
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
WASHINGTON — The Senate approved a $1.7 trillion government funding bill on Thursday, sending the laws to the House, where it is predicted to pass in time to beat a Friday night deadline to avert a partial federal government shutdown.
The ultimate vote was 68 in favor and 29 opposed.
The 4,155-page bill will provide $772.5 billion for nondefense discretionary programs, and $858 billion in defense funding, based on a summary released earlier this week by Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. The figures represent a couple of 5% increase in nondefense spending, and an 8% hike for defense and Pentagon programs.
The laws also comprises $44.9 billion in military, humanitarian and economic aid for Ukraine. The whole includes funds to replenish Pentagon stockpiles of weapons the U.S. sent to Ukraine, together with additional aid for NATO allies.
The Senate vote got here sooner or later after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Washington and delivered a historic speech to a special joint meeting of Congress. Wearing military fatigues and boots, he urged lawmakers to maintain funding his country’s “war of independence” against invading Russian forces.
Along with the Ukraine assistance, the measure provides $40 billion in recent funding for states and tribal reservations to assist communities nationwide recuperate from natural disasters, resembling wildfires and major storms.
It also overhauls the federal Electoral Count Act, an 1887 law that former President Donald Trump and his allies sought to make use of to overturn the outcomes of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost.
The changes make clear that the role of the vp in certifying states’ electoral counts could be completely ceremonial, with no power to reject the outcomes of an election that was certified by states.
In 2020, Trump repeatedly pressured then-Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the electoral votes for President Joe Biden. Pence refused to achieve this through the Jan. 6, 2021, certification process, becoming a goal of the pro-Trump rioters who attacked the Capitol that day.
The Senate vote to fund the federal government was a bipartisan one. Republicans crossed party lines to back what many viewed as must-pass laws.
Amongst them was Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who urged his caucus to back the bill. He called it “imperfect but strong.”
“If Senate Republicans controlled this chamber, we’d have handled the appropriations process otherwise from top to bottom,” McConnell said Wednesday on the Senate floor.
“But given the truth of where we stand today, senators have two options this week: We’ll either give our armed forces the resources and certainty that they need, or we are going to deny it to them,” he said.
If the House passes the bill, it’ll represent one other significant bipartisan win for Biden, who has notched a variety of legislative victories up to now yr on bills that passed with each Republican and Democratic support. A number of the most notable were the Respect for Marriage Act, the infrastructure bill and the CHIPS and Science Act.
Passing the federal spending package now will even be certain that government funding levels are set in stone while Democrats still control each the House and Senate. If either the Senate or House were to fail to advance the bill, there’s an excellent likelihood it might be punted into the brand new yr, when Republicans will control the House.
