WASHINGTON \u2014 President Donald Trump signed a temporary spending bill into law on Dec. 22 to avert a government shutdown after the Republican-led Congress did the bare minimum in a sprint toward the holidays and punted disputes on immigration, health care and the budget to next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measure had passed the House on Thursday on a 231-188 vote over Democratic opposition and then cleared the Senate, 66-32, with Democrats from Republican-leaning states providing many of the key votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stopgap legislation will keep the government from closing down at midnight Friday. It traversed a tortured path, encountering resistance from the GOP\u2019s most ardent allies of the military, as well as opposition from Democrats who demanded but were denied a vote on giving immigrants brought to the country as children and in the country illegally an opportunity to become citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The wrap-up measure allows Republicans controlling Washington to savor their win on this week\u2019s $1.5 trillion tax package \u2014 even as they kick a full lineup of leftover work into the new year. Congress will return in January facing enormous challenges on immigration, the federal budget, health care and national security along with legislation to increase the government\u2019s authority to borrow money.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each of those items is sure to test the unity that Republicans are enjoying for the moment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cNow it gets down to some very difficult decisions on how we move forward in the first and second quarter of next year,\u201d said Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., a leader of a powerful faction of hard-right Republicans. \u201cThere is a lot to do next month. I\u2019m not worried today. I\u2019ll wait until January to be worried, OK?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats had initially pressed for adding their priorities to the measure, but once rebuffed on immigration they worked to keep the bill mostly free of add-ons, figuring that they\u2019ll hold greater leverage next month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among the items left behind was $81 billion worth of disaster aid, which passed the House on a bipartisan 251-169 tally but stalled in the Senate. The measure would have brought this year\u2019s tally for aid to hurricane victims in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Caribbean, as well as fire-ravaged California, to more than $130 billion. But both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate want changes, and it was among the items Democrats sought to hold onto for leverage next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDemocrats want to make sure that we have equal bargaining, and we\u2019re not going to allow things like disaster relief go forward without discussing some of the other issues we care about,\u201d said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Immigration is among the most difficult issues confronting lawmakers in January, thrust upon them in September after Trump rescinded an order by then-President Barack Obama giving these so-called Dreamers protection against deportation, though he gave Congress a March deadline to come up with a legislative solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey embody the best in our nation: patriotism, hard work, perseverance,\u201d House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California told the chamber\u2019s Rules Committee on Thursday. \u201cWe should not leave them to celebrate the holidays in fear.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump and Republicans are pushing for additional border security and other immigration steps in exchange.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe vast majority of Republicans want to see a DACA solution. They just want to see a DACA solution that\u2019s balanced,\u201d said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., referring to the program\u2019s name, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also left unfinished were bipartisan efforts to smash budget limits that are imposing a freeze on the Pentagon and domestic agencies, a long-term extension of the popular Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program for 9 million low-income kids and Senate legislation aimed at stabilizing health insurance markets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAt some point we\u2019ve got to make the hard decisions,\u201d said Republican Sen. John Thune of South Dakota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Instead, lawmakers struggled to achieve the must-do: a $2.1 billion fix for an expiring program that pays for veterans to seek care outside the Department of Veterans Affairs system; a temporary fix to ensure states facing shortfalls from the Children\u2019s Health Insurance Program won\u2019t have to purge children from the program; and a short-term extension for an expiring overseas wiretapping program aimed at tracking terrorists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Among Republicans, opposition to the temporary measure came mostly from the party\u2019s defense hawks, who had hoped to enact record increases for the military this year and force the Senate to debate a full-year, $658 billion defense spending measure. But that idea was a nonstarter with Senate Democrats, who will only agree to Pentagon increases if domestic programs get a comparable hike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The short-term spending bill does contain about $5 billion to upgrade missile defenses to respond to the threat from North Korea and to repair two destroyers damaged in accidents this year in the Pacific.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The legislation also has a provision to turn off automatic cuts to many \u201cmandatory\u201d spending programs, including Medicare, that would otherwise be triggered by the tax cut bill. Democrats had sought to highlight the looming spending cuts in arguing against the tax measure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The stopgap legislation will keep the government from closing down at midnight Friday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":54104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":65,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[65,106,31,15,33],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3788],"class_list":["post-18394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-budget","category-daily-brief","category-home","category-management","category-newsletters"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"SLSN2QMLERBGPCDM6TRWG6SK5U","arc_canonical_url":"\/management\/budget\/2017\/12\/22\/trump-signs-stopgap-spending-bill-into-law-to-avert-shutdown\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n