The House passed a stopgap spending bill to avoid an Oct. 1 U.S. government shutdown, setting up a showdown in the Senate later Friday, when Democrats are expected to block the legislation over demands to bolster health-care spending.
House Speaker Mike Johnson overcame grumbling from some fellow Republicans to approve the legislation on an 217 to 212 vote. Nearly all House Democrats voted against the bill, which Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries portrayed as a choice between standing up for health care for Americans and bending a knee to President Donald Trump.
The GOP measure includes a handful of policy changes including a boost to security funds for lawmakers and federal officials and a provision allowing the District of Columbia to spend its own tax dollars in the next fiscal year.
Johnson was able to win over some conservatives — deeply concerned over their own safety after the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk — by promises to provide more money for their personal security later this year.
Trump urged the party to unite behind the stopgap, known as a continuing resolution, which keeps funding at Biden-era levels, in order to thwart the attempt by Democrats to increase spending on health care.
The Senate plans to take up the House bill later Friday and a rival measure put forward by Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer to finance the government through Oct. 31. Both bills are expected to fail, leading to a standoff less than two weeks before the Oct. 1 deadline.
The $1.5 trillion Democratic measure would spend $350 billion to extend permanently expiring Obamacare tax subsidies for the middle class and would reverse a nearly $1 trillion cut to Medicaid spending enacted by Republicans as part of their partisan tax package this summer.
The legislation would also reverse cutbacks in medical research, restore money for NPR and PBS and prevent the White House from unilaterally refusing to spend appropriated funds.
Schumer argued that a battle over Obamacare subsidies was needed now given that insurers will send out premium increase notices Nov. 1.
“Americans will see the glaring contrast between the Republican plan continuing the status quo of Donald Trump’s health-care cuts and high costs and the Democratic plan to avoid a shutdown while lowering premiums, fixing Medicaid, and protecting funds for scientific and medical research,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Thursday.
Democrats, unable to slow Trump’s agenda or even garner much media attention for their efforts, are under increasing pressure to risk a shutdown. Schumer in March backed off from a similar threat and allowed 10 Democrats to vote for a temporary spending bill. He is taking a tougher line this time, even as some of the same 10 senators refuse to say how they will vote in the end.
Johnson said there was “zero” chance Republicans would repeal elements of their signature tax overhaul, but has hinted at a negotiation on Obamacare subsidies could take place before the end of the year. Twelve swing district House Republicans have signed onto a plan to extend them for one year and moderate Senate Republicans are engaged in back-room talks about a possible bill.
Johnson and other top Republicans have indicated they want tighter income limits and fraud controls if any version of the Obamacare subsides are to be extended. For now they say they will not entertain them in a stopgap bill.
“Chuck Schumer is going to have to make a choice. If he wants to shut the government down, he will own the consequences of that, and everybody will be able to see exactly what’s going on here,” he said on Fox News Thursday.
A stopgap bill is necessary to keep government agencies running after the end of the month because Congress has, as has become its habit, failed to pass any of the annual appropriations bills on time.
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