Schumer says Senate could pass $1.7T funding package as early as Wednesday
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he hoped the Senate could pass a sweeping fiscal 2023 government funding package as early as Wednesday, as leaders press for swift passage ahead of a Friday shutdown deadline.
“The Senate took the first step to passing this bill last night voting 75 to 20 to begin to debate,” he said, referring to a procedural vote to kickstart the process in the upper chamber on Tuesday.
Schumer on Wednesday morning called the margin “a strong signal that both sides are keen to finish funding the government very soon.”
“We must finish our work before the deadline of Friday midnight, but, in reality, I hope we can vote on final passage much sooner than that, even as early as tonight,” he said on Monday morning.
The House and Senate are both readying for an address to a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night by Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. The funding package includes $45 billion in aid to Ukraine.
Schumer said both sides are still negotiating possible amendments he’s hopeful senators can begin voting on later in the day in order to “reach final passage soon.”
“But again, that’s going to require cooperation,” he said. “So, I urge my colleagues not to stand in the way of moving this process forward. Nobody wants a shutdown.”
Government funding is scheduled to lapse on midnight Friday under a deadline set by a short-term measure lawmakers passed last week to buy more time for funding negotiations.
The omnibus funding package unveiled by congressional negotiators on early Tuesday will fund the government and its various agencies through the remainder of fiscal 2023, which ends in late September.
Republicans opposing the omnibus have been pressing for Congress to put off government spending through early next year. The move, they say, is necessary to give the party more influence in funding talks as Washington prepares to usher in a newly GOP-led House.
But many Senate Republicans have expressed support for an omnibus to be enacted sooner than next year, citing concerns for funding in areas such as defense.
The 4,155-page package, made up of the 12 annual appropriations bills, includes $772.5 billion in non-defense discretionary spending, and $858 billion in defense funding – a gap in growth that Republicans pushing for passage are seeking to capitalize on when factoring in inflation.
“The world’s greatest military will get the funding increases that it needs, outpacing inflation,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said on the floor shortly after Schumer’s remarks. “Meanwhile, non-defense, non-veterans spending all come in below the rate of inflation for a real dollar cut.”
“If Senate Republicans control the chamber, we would have handled the appropriations process entirely differently from top to bottom,” McConnell said. “But, given the reality of where we stand today, senators have two options this week, just two, give our armed forces the resources and the certainty that they need or we will deny it to them.”
Source: TEST FEED1
