Congress finally passes partial government funding, narrowly avoiding shutdown

WASHINGTON – The Senate passed crucial spending bills with a 75 to 22 vote on Friday, avoiding a government shutdown just before the latest deadline.

It marks the first successful legislating this Congress has done on their most fundamental responsibility – funding the federal government. The spending bills were initially due more than five months ago, and the deadline has been extended four times.

It came down to the wire: The Senate approved the spending package just hours before the Friday night deadline, narrowly averting a partial shutdown.

“Because both sides cooperated today, we’ve taken a major step towards our goal of fully funding the government,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said on the Senate floor ahead of the vote. “Of course, it’s going to take both sides working together to keep that momentum alive.”

And there's another challenge ahead – six more funding bills are due on March 22, and they may be even more contentious than the first six that passed Friday.

This all comes as Congress typically begins the budget process for the next fiscal year, though lawmakers haven't yet received President Joe Biden's next budget request.

The $467.5 billion appropriations bill passed Friday funds dozens of federal programs related to agriculture, food and drug regulation, energy and water, transportation, veterans, housing and the Justice Department.

When the House passed the bill on Wednesday, Schumer said he would attempt to pass it "with time to spare" before an end-of-the-week deadline that would result in a partial government shutdown.

However, the upper chamber cut it closer than they were expecting: Several senators demanded votes on amendments to the bill in exchange for their consent to speed up the process, and an agreement wasn't made until Friday night.

"I would urge my colleagues to stop playing with fire here," the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee , Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, warned on the Senate floor Friday. "The House, controlled by Republicans, passed these bills... with a very strong bipartisan vote."

Conservative opponents of the spending bills eventually acquiesced in exchange for a vote on amendments to the legislation, which all failed. The small group of frustrated senators also pales in comparison with the fury in the House, where hard-right members railed against House Speaker Mike Johnson for not threatening a partial government shutdown over GOP policy priorities.

Still, both sides got pieces of what they wanted in the long-awaited spending deal.

Republicans touted some wins in the long-contested package, including protections for gun rights for military veterans who have been deemed unable to manage their own veterans affairs benefits – a major sticking point in negotiations – and spending cuts to the Department of Justice; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the FBI and the Environmental Protection Agency among others.

"We only control half of one-third of the federal government, so we have to be realistic about what we are able to achieve," House Speaker Mike Johnson said Wednesday before the package passed his chamber. "But in spite of that, we have an appropriations package that is going to cut non-defense, non-VA discretionary spending."

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Wednesday he would vote against the package due to the gun provision: "I can’t sugarcoat this: this provision — which could result in 20,000 new seriously mentally ill individuals being able to buy guns each year — will be a death sentence for many," he said in a statement.

Democrats got another $1 billion in funding for Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, or the WIC program, raising funding from $6 billion to $7 billion, and successfully blocked a GOP policy rider that would have restricted access to abortion pills.

The first tranche of spending bills also includes more than $12.6 billion in earmarks, funding requested by lawmakers of both parties and set aside for projects in their districts or states – another point of frustration for some.

"Pork barrel spending sounds bad and smells worse," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., quipped on the Senate floor Friday.

The next test will be the six remaining appropriations bills, covering the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, State, Health and Human Services, Education and Labor, which are due on March 22.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said he thinks the Homeland Security budget is "going to be tough sledding" and may bring more grappling over border security and immigration policy riders. (Senate Republicans rejected a bipartisan border security package connected to a foreign aid bill that passed the upper chamber last month, arguing it didn't go far enough.) He also expects a fight over the topline spending level for defense.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.V., is the top Senate Republican working on the budgets for the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education agencies. She told USA TODAY on Thursday that negotiators are close to reaching a deal.

But "there may be some that are more problematic than others" for reaching a bipartisan agreement, she said. Still, she expressed optimism that lawmakers will hit the next deadline:

"I think we're ready to wrap it up."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Congress finally passes partial government funding, narrowly avoiding shutdown