November 14, 2023
The House just passed a bill to avoid a government shutdown on Friday.
Phew.
But but but this isn’t over yet.
The final vote – 336 to 95. With 209 Democrats voting yes and only 127 Republican voting yes. 93 Republicans voted no and only 2 Democrats voted now.
You may be thinking – more Democrats voted for the Republican House Speaker’s plan than his own Republicans conference. Yeah. That’s exactly what happened. The House Speaker had to use a specific type of legislative function to go around his own House Republican colleagues. Because if he didn’t, you can see by those numbers– the Republicans would have sunk this bill. And the new House Speaker did not want to go into the holidays with a government shutdown.
So what were republicans so pissed about?
This is the complicated new bill proposed by Speaker to avoid this Friday’s government shutdown by passing a short-term spending plan giving us two more government shutdowns. One on January 19th of next year and the other on February 2nd of next year. That was fine with the Republicans. But what was not fine – is the plan keeps spending levels the same it does not cut spending. And that’s what upset them. At the same time – this bill does not add any new money for Israel, Ukraine, the border or for FEMA to help the people of Maui or others who are victims of natural disasters.
Now – this bill will move to the Senate. And Senate Majority Leader Schumer says he wants a vote on this “as soon as possible.” And it looks like it will can be passed. And even though the White House originally said this plan was “unserious”, Schumer said the White House has now agreed that the president will sign it so we can avoid a shutdown.
