The House has passed a bill to temporarily extend funding for the federal government for roughly a month and a half, allowing — with just hours to spare — a framework under which federal personnel including military members can count for at least a bit longer on their paychecks actually coming. And delivering a win for Democrats and concerned observers, the House GOP’s biggest ambitions, from border policy to spending cuts, were OUT of the framework that started moving through Congress on Saturday.
The bill still needed approval from the Democratic Party-led Senate and a presidential signature, but the approval in the House meant it already overcame the biggest hurdles.
House Republicans were responsible for the major delays in government funding up to this point, as many of the party’s members in the larger legislative chamber insisted on policy demands in areas like the southern border and immigration. Some of their agenda items would simply not provide for the bipartisan cooperation needed to fund the government at present because of the split partisan control in D.C., meaning the entire endeavor of actually funding the government was on rhetorical thin ice.
Adding problems to the situation, House Republicans struggled to pass anything at all, since some Republicans have been opposing almost any short-term fix, and earlier, GOP leadership was trying to assemble the needed support from Republicans instead of looking for cooperation with Democrats.
Well, House Republicans finally folded. What was described as a clean CR (meaning continuing resolution) finally came up for a vote on Saturday, and most of the chamber supported it. The Senate had earlier been advancing a similar measure that also included support for Ukraine aid that did not appear in the House version.
“MAGA Republicans have surrendered. All extreme right-wing policies have been removed from the House spending bill. The American people have won,” Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), the leader of Democrats in the House, said this Saturday.
MAGA Republicans have surrendered.
All extreme right-wing policies have been removed from the House spending bill.
The American people have won.
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) September 30, 2023
