Congress passes stopgap spending bill, averting shutdown despite GOP revolt on vaccine requirements

[brooklynite]

Source: Washington Post

House and Senate lawmakers on Thursday approved a bill to fund the federal government into early next year, narrowly averting a shutdown after some Republicans sought to seize on the imminent fiscal deadline to fight President Biden over his vaccine policies.

The two successful evening votes spelled an end to a brief yet tense period that would have brought Washington to a halt come Saturday morning, a development that Democrats had described as irresponsible and dangerous in the middle of a deadly pandemic.

The new agreement, which now awaits Biden’s signature, covers federal spending until February 18. At that point, lawmakers must adopt another short-term measure or complete work on a dozen long-stalled appropriations bills that fund the government for the remainder of the 2022 fiscal year, which ends in September.

Even as both parties insisted they did not want to push the country toward a fiscal cliff, they still came dangerously close to missing their deadline. For days, conservative Republicans had threatened to hold up the funding bill as part of a long-running protest against Biden’s vaccine directives, including those ordering large employers to require inoculations or implement comprehensive testing programs. Some lawmakers, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), even explicitly called for a shutdown in a bid to deny the White House the ability to enforce its rules.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/12/02/government-funding-shutdown-vaccine/

[question everything]

1. Feb 18 will be here soon. In the middle of an election year

[gab13by13]

2. Schumer had to vote on the vaccine bill first.

Mike Lee of Utah was going to object to funding the government which would have delayed its passage unless Schumer agreed to bypass the filibuster and have an up or down vote on president Biden's vaccine mandate. The vote was iffy because of Senator Manchin showing reluctance to vote for a corporate vaccine mandate, but he did vote for the mandate.

So Congress votes to fund the government, how many GQPers in the House voted to fund the government? Was it 1 or none I wasn't sure how Kinzinger voted.

Didn't see the Senate vote breakdown but I assume some GQPers in the Senate voted aye.

I would have used a different headline; Democrats force passage of funding the government averting a shutdown.

[NYC Liberal]

4. 19 GQPers voted yes.

Blunt
Burr
Capito
Cassidy
Collins
Cornyn
Graham
Hyde-Smith
Kennedy
McConnell
Moran
Murkowski
Portman
Rounds
Rubio
Shelby
Tillis
Wicker
Young

Full breakdown: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=117&session=1&vote=00477

[Bayard]

5. That's shocking.

Especially McConnell.

[muriel_volestrangler]

6. Surprising that Romney voted No, while Kennedy, who's been quite the asshole, was a Yes

I expected better of Romney (I know, never expect anything reasonable from a Republican).

[Slammer]

8. Romney

It's one of the few times that there were enough Republicans onboard for a vote to pass easily.

Romney has to take the occasional vote off to suck up to his constituents.

Better this vote than on a close one.

[Cha]

3. Good on the Dems!

[Alexander Of Assyria]

7. Meanwhile China has a 5 year budget plan, also 10, 20 and 50...America got 3 month plan.

Wonder how they doing on the global economic and goodwill leadership stage?

[IronLionZion]

9. GOP voters can achieve natural immunity the old fashioned way

many of them are no longer with us but that's the price of freedom