HOUSE APPROVES SPENDING PLAN JUST HOURS BEFORE FUNDING LAPSSES, SETTING UP ANOTHER SPENDING SHOWDOWN
The House of Representatives approved a greatly slimmed-down spending plan on Friday evening, just hours before funding is set to lapse and the federal government would shutter. The Senate is expected to take up the measure shortly.
The latest version of the package comes after President-elect Donald Trump torpedoed a bipartisan agreement struck earlier in the week. A House vote on a Trump-endorsed funding bill failed on Thursday evening.
The current proposal would fund the government through March 14, setting up another spending showdown in the early days of the Trump administration. Republicans will control both the Senate and House come January, but the party will have slim margins in both chambers.
The package also retains billions of dollars in disaster relief needed by states hit hard by hurricanes and other natural disasters.
Some key provisions of the bill include:
* $100 billion to help Americans recover from natural disasters
* $29 billion to replenish the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Disaster Relief Fund
* $10 billion in economic aid for farmers
* One-year extension of the farm bill
* Funding to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Maryland
* Extension of a pandemic-era measure that expanded the use of telehealth in Medicare
* No debt ceiling increase in the current package
Other provisions that did not make the cut include:
* Reforms for pharmacy benefit managers
* A measure to limit US investments in China
* A bipartisan bill to criminalize the publication of non-consensual intimate imagery (NCII)
* Funding for the National Institutes of Health’s Gabriella Miller Kids First Pediatric Research Program
* Protections for low-income Americans who have their food stamp benefits stolen
The bill now goes to the Senate for approval.