Senate Backs Spending Measure to Avert Shutdown
Senate Backs Spending Measure to Avert Shutdown
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN SEPT. 28, 2015
WASHINGTON — After a brief trading of angry recriminations, Senate Republicans and Democrats voted Monday to advance a temporary spending measure that would avert a shutdown of the federal government on Wednesday night but also signals a battle in the weeks ahead.
The measure, which still requires final approval by the Senate and by the House, where some rank-and-file Republicans had pledged to block it, would keep agencies operating roughly at last year’s spending levels through Dec. 11.
The vote was 77 to 19, with 60 votes needed to proceed, and 31 Republicans joined 44 Democrats and two independents in favor.
The bill does not include language cutting off federal financing for Planned Parenthood, a step that many Republicans had demanded while they investigate allegations surrounding the organization’s role in providing aborted fetuses for use in medical research.
It remains uncertain how House Republicans will handle the spending measure, particularly after the unexpected resignation on Friday of Speaker John A. Boehner. Some Congressional aides said they expected that Mr. Boehner would be able to push the bill through with support from Democrats, now that he does not have to worry about political reprisal from the hard-line conservatives in his own party, the same lawmakers who forced a government shutdown in 2013 over the Affordable Care Act.
The bill must be adopted before the fiscal year ends at 11:59 p.m. on Wednesday or many federal agencies will be forced to shut down on Thursday.
Even in the Senate, Republicans expressed grave displeasure at having to adopt the legislation without the Planned Parenthood language. And the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky, sharply criticized Democrats for blocking the regular spending bills and forcing a showdown.
Mr. McConnell said that Senate Democrats had stopped all 12 regular appropriations bills “in the hopes of provoking a crisis Democrats might exploit to grow the I.R.S. and the D.C. bureaucracy.” Mr. McConnell expressed particular outrage that Democrats had blocked the military spending measure that would pay for troops serving overseas.
“This leaves the funding legislation before us as the only viable way forward in the short term,” Mr. McConnell said. “It doesn’t represent my first, second, third, or 23rd choice when it comes to funding the government, but it will keep the government open through the fall.”
The Democratic Senate leader, Harry Reid of Nevada, said it was the Republicans who were to blame for trying to force a government shutdown, and he noted that the Dec. 11 deadline would make for a tense fight over the next few months.
“Though it appears we’ll sidestep a Republican-manufactured crisis this week, the disaster is looming head,” Mr. Reid said.
Congress must still address how to fund the government in the longer term, whether to raise the debt limit and passing a highway bill.
“The measure is really shortsighted,” Mr. Reid said. “Dec. 11 — that means within the coming weeks we will again be negotiating with the Republicans to avoid another shutdown, we’ll also have to find a way to pay our bills.”
Mr. Reid warned about the unpredictability in the Republican-controlled House.
“Last week the Republican House showed that it can depose a speaker,” he said. “I hope they elect some sensible leaders. I’m deeply concerned. Come Nov. 1, we have no idea what House Republicans will do. This is after their election to replace Congressman Boehner. They want to go off the cliff or do they want to wreck the global economy? Maybe both.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/29/us...-shutdown.html