House Passes $1.3 Trillion Spending Bill; Focus Shifts to Senate as Clock Ticks

WASHINGTON — The House on Thursday gave swift approval to a $1.3 trillion spending bill that would fund the government through September, shaking off the objections of its most conservative members and voting less than 24 hours after the 2,232-page document was unveiled.

With government funding set to expire at midnight Friday, the focus now shifts to the Senate, whose approval is needed to avert what would be the third government shutdown of the year.

The spending bill, which congressional leaders agreed to Wednesday and President Donald Trump seemed to grudgingly endorse on Twitter, would provide big increases to the military and to domestic programs — and clearly rebuff the Trump administration’s efforts to dramatically scale back the reach and scope of the federal government.

Congress paved the way for this week’s legislation with a two-year budget deal last month that raised strict limits on military and domestic spending by about $140 billion this year.

In dividing up the spoils of that budget agreement, Congress broadly rebuked the Trump administration’s initial vision for the federal government. The president’s efforts to scale back foreign aid and slash funding for the diplomatic corps went nowhere. His desire to dramatically cut spending on the environment was rebuffed. Programs such as the cleanup of the Great Lakes, far from being eliminated, were spared any reductions.

The spending bill “repudiates the abysmal Trump budget, investing robustly in critical priorities like child care; transportation infrastructure; national security; election protection; medical research; opioid abuse, prevention and treatment; veterans’ health services; and much more,” said Rep. Nita Lowey, D-N.Y., the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee.

At the White House, Trump’s top advisers worked to put the best face on a package they conceded fell short of fully funding his priorities and contained many items he would rather not have swallowed.

“In order to get the defense spending, primarily, but all the rest of our priorities funded, we had to give away a lot of stuff that we didn’t want to give away” to Democrats, Mick Mulvaney, the White House budget director, told reporters during a briefing where he also highlighted funding for immigration enforcement, school safety measures, combating the opioid crisis, workforce development and infrastructure.

“My job is to get the president’s priorities funded, which this does,” added Mulvaney, a onetime budget hawk in Congress who routinely voted against large spending packages and sidestepped a question on whether he would have done so for the measure now before lawmakers. “The president wants it to pass and wants it to be signed.”

But negotiations among congressional leaders on this week’s bill dragged on precariously close to Friday’s deadline to keep the government open. Even with the successful House vote Thursday, there is still a chance of a brief government shutdown this weekend, given that any senator can object to a quick vote.

Among other things, the bill includes $1.6 billion for more than 90 miles of physical barriers along the border with Mexico, as well as related technology. But that sum is far short of what Trump would need to construct the expansive border wall that he promised in his campaign for president.

As November’s midterm elections loom, the spending bill will allow lawmakers from both parties to go home and claim success on a wide range of issues, including beefing up the military and providing much-needed funding for priorities such as combating the opioid epidemic and rebuilding crumbling infrastructure.

That additional spending comes at the expense of adding even further to the national debt, which has topped $21 trillion — something that has seemed of minimal concern on Capitol Hill in recent months, where Republicans passed a sweeping tax overhaul late last year that will also result in piling up more debt.

The process for approving the spending legislation this week left bruised feelings, as the enormous bill was not made public until Wednesday night.

“In all honesty, none of us know what is actually in this bill,” Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said Thursday morning, just hours before House members were asked to give their approval to the bill.

If no senator objects, the Senate could move quickly to give its approval to the measure, clearing the way for Trump to sign it and avert a shutdown this weekend.

But any senator could object to speeding up a vote, just as Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., did last month, causing a brief shutdown. Paul made clear this week that he objected to both the process for jamming the spending bill through Congress as well as the substance of the legislation.

“I’m upset that we’re spending like every Democrat that we criticized,” he said. “I ran for office because I thought the Obama spending and trillion-dollar annual deficits were a real problem for our country, and now Republicans are doing the same thing, and so I’m giving them the same grief I gave Obama.”

Paul has not indicated whether he will allow a vote before Friday’s deadline. But before the House’s vote Thursday, he fumed about the bill on Twitter: “Shame, shame. A pox on both Houses - and parties. $1.3 trillion. Busts budget caps. 2200 pages, with just hours to try to read it.”