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Once again, the U.S. government was on the brink of a partial shutdown, when lawmakers finally passed a collection of spending bills. The more than $1 trillion in federal spending will fund the government through Sept. 30.
The passage of the spending package was good news. However, it could have been passed months ago if recalcitrant House Republicans had been more focused on serving the American people than trying to score political points.
On Friday morning, the House passed the bill by a vote of 286-134. That just surpassed the two-thirds vote needed for approval. However, only 101 House Republicans voted for the spending plan; 112 House Republicans voted against it.
Many objected to the speed at which the bill was passed and many wanted more funding for work at the southern U.S. border.
In the early hours of Saturday — after some federal funding had technically run out — the Senate passed the budget by a vote of 74-24.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security,” President Joe Biden said in a statement released by the White House on Saturday. “That’s good news for the American people.”
It is good news that federal government operations will be funded for several months.
However, it shouldn’t have taken repeated threats of a government shutdown, passage of several short-term funding bills known as continuing resolutions, and the deposing of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to get here.
The Senate Appropriations Committee, where U.S. Sen. Susan Collins is the vice chair, offered a better mod el last year. The committee had methodically considered, and passed, 12 funding bills, with strong bipartisan support. This involved hours of public testimony, debate and amendments. In other words, they did the work that members of Congress are supposed to do.
These bills, which were passed before the end of last summer, could have easily been the framework for a spending package that likely could have been passed in both the Senate and House last year.
“We passed 12 bills with overwhelming bipartisan support last summer — and that was important. I think that bipartisanship and shared commitment to doing what was right for the country served us well in negotiating our final spending bills,” U.S. Sen Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington who chairs the Senate Appropriations Committee, said in a statement on Saturday.
“I hope my House Republican colleagues now understand that bipartisanship is the only path forward in a divided government,” she added.
Rather than take this path, a small group of Republicans in the House has been more committed to creating chaos than to actually governing. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia has already filed a motion to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson, who replaced McCarthy in October.
In addition, many Republicans said they wanted both spending cuts and more money for border security.
The border issue is especially frustrating because congressional Republicans effectively killed a bill that would have made significant improvements to border security and immigration policy, while also funding foreign aid. Republicans said they wanted to link border security and foreign aid, but when a compromise was struck to do so, they opposed the bill. They also doomed a foreign aid bill because it didn’t include funding for border security.
While the spending package passed last week does include additional funding to address some immigration issues, aid for Ukraine, Israel and other U.S. allies remains in limbo.
Passing bills to fund the government is one of the most basic tasks of members of Congress. There is much more work to do on numerous issues. That work can only succeed when lawmakers work together, across the aisle and in both the House and Senate.
It may be a faint hope, but we once again hope for a better process. We’ll say it again: We believe the biggest change must come from House Republicans, who need to stop treating pragmatism like a defect and fully embrace the hard work of actually governing.
