Averting a shutdown, the House adopts a $1.7 trillion budget plan and sends it to Biden

 

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi arrives for her final weekly press briefing in the US Capitol Visitor Center in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 22, 2022.Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

Averting a shutdown, the House adopts a $1.7 trillion budget plan and sends it to Biden. 

Despite most Republicans voting against it, the essential legislation was easily approved. Averting a shutdown, the House adopts a $1.7 trillion budget plan and sends it to Biden.

another evidence that Republicans and Democrats can work together to deliver for the American people.”

Later on Friday, Biden officially avoided a govt shutdown before the midnight deadline by signing a short-term funding bill into law. This gave lawmakers on Capitol Hill enough time to process the spending bill and get it prepared for his signature at some point in the days ahead.

GOP lawmakers had been instructed to vote against by the measure by House Republican leaders.

Over half of House members filed proxy letters, enabling them to vote remotely, after returning home in advance of dangerous winter storms that were expected to disrupt travel before the holidays. This was the final bill that Democrats will pass while in control of the House before the GOP takes control on January 3. 

Senate passage of the bill did not include all requests from White House officials, such as additional COVID funding and an expanded Child Tax Credit.

It also did not include an amendment from Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, that would have kept in place Title 42, a pandemic-era policy which allows the expulsion of migrants on public health grounds that expired this week despite legal challenges waged by Republicans against its rollback. Another Title 42 amendment, introduced by Sen. Krysten Sinema, I-Ariz., and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., also failed.

Still, Biden praised the legislation in his statement on Friday, highlighting it’s advancement of cancer and other disease research through his ARPA-H initiative, investment in community policing and further funding the Violence Against Women Act, among other tenants of the bill, like relief aid, Ukraine funding and veteran health care expansion.

“The bipartisan funding bill advances key priorities for our country and caps off a year of historic bipartisan progress for the American people,” he said. “I want to thank Senator Leahy, Senator Shelby, and Chairwoman DeLauro for their tireless work to get this done. Neither side got everything it wanted in this agreement – that’s what happens in a negotiation.”

Several additional amendments did pass, including two that expand pregnancy and breastfeeding accommodations and security in the workplace as well as a measure known as the 9/11 Responder and Survivor Health Funding Correction Act that funds a shortfall in the 9/11 first responder fund called the World Trade Center Healthcare Program. The amendment funds the program for another five years and authorizes $2.7 billion in compensation payments to the families of 9/11 victims, the Beirut Marine barracks bombing and other acts of terrorism.