Senate Passes Spending Bill, Goes On To House

The government spending bill has passed through the Senate and is now on its way to the House. The Senate passed a $1.66 trillion government spending bill, sending it to the House of Representatives to approve. 

After that, it would go on to President Joe Biden for his signature. 

A spending bill agreement would ideally avoid a partial government shutdown. The legislation provides funding through Sept. 30, 2023, for the U.S. military and an array of non-military programs.

For weeks, Congress has been debating spending bills and amendments to avoid a government shutdown. 

Progress on the bill slowed this week after conservative Republican Senator Mike Lee introduced an amendment aimed to slow immigration. The amendment would have required the U.S. to maintain a policy from the Trump era known as Title 42, which prevented hundreds of thousands of immigrants from seeking asylum. 

The move prompted Democrats to put forward a competing amendment that would boost funding for various law enforcement agencies that operate on the border. Both amendments failed. 

In practice this allowed lawmakers to move forward with the bill overall. 

The spending bill provides Ukraine with $44.9 billion in wartime aid and bans the use of the Chinese-owned social media app TikTok on federal government devices.

Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, a Democrat who is retiring after nearly five decades in the Senate, praised the bipartisan support for the measure following months of negotiations.

His Republican counterpart, Richard Shelby, who also is retiring following a long career in Congress, said of the 4,155-page bill, “It’s got a lot of stuff in it. A lot of good stuff.”

While the spending bill is expected to pass in the Democratic-led House as well, most Republicans there have come out against it, criticizing the package for increasing spending without addressing priorities such as securing the U.S.-Mexico border.

Republicans in the House want to stop negotiations on spending until next year when they have power.