WASHINGTON \u2014 The U.S. Senate on Thursday voted overwhelmingly to send the overdue 2017 federal spending package to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The bill funds the government through September.
The upper chamber voted 79\u00a0to 18\u00a0to advance the $1.1 trillion bipartisan bill unveiled Monday after weeks of talks between both parties in Congress, as well as the White House. The omnibus bill contains $598.5 billion for defense, which is roughly $25 billion above 2016 levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
“While the additional funds for defense and border security have received much of the attention, there are many other important programs funded within the appropriations bills that comprise this legislation,” Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Thad Cochran. R-Miss., said before the vote. “Throughout the bill, spending controls are placed on Federal agencies. There are more than 150 rescissions, consolidations or program terminations within this bill. These savings have been reallocated to higher priorities.”
“If the four corners \u2014 the Senate, the House, Democrats and Republicans \u2014 work as well on 2018 as on the 2017 budget, we will have a product we can be proud of with no worries of a government shutdown,” Schumer said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Though fiscal 2016 ended Sept. 30, Republicans championed and passed a stopgap continuing resolution that lasted into late April to give the new Trump administration a chance to add its stamp on spending legislation and buy time for GOP priorities in Congress. By late April, Congress passed another seven-day CR to avert a government shutdown and buy time to finish negotiations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
While the GOP touted increases for defense and border protection,\u00a0Democrats claimed victory afterward because they beat back efforts to defund so-called sanctuary cities that skirt federal immigration enforcement and got the White House to drop its insistence on funding for a border wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That in turn alienated some Republicans, but not enough of them to defeat the measure. All 18 “no” votes came from Republicans, but 32 Republicans voted “yes.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain, R-Ariz., said he was voting for the measure because it included a portion of the $30 billion\u00a0defense supplemental spending bill Trump asked for in March.\u00a0“You can’t not have that defense plus-up,” he said.
FreedomWorks, a conservative advocacy group for fiscal restraint and limited government, urged senators late Wednesday to vote “no” because the bill reflects the spending priorities of congressional Democrats. The bill was “a big step in the wrong direction, and no fiscal conservative in the Senate should support it,” FreedomWorks President Adam Brandon said in a statement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A lead Senate defense hawk, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., praised the national security funding but voted “no,” in part because it let energy tax credits expire, hindering efforts to build nuclear reactors in his state and Georgia. He\u00a0expressed frustration that sweeping omnibus spending bills have supplanted the regular order on individual appropriations bills.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I shouldn’t have to pick between increasing defense and 22,000 jobs,” Graham said. The Senate on Thursday voted to send the overdue 2017 federal spending package to President Donald Trump, who is expected to sign it. The bill funds the government through September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27719,"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":86,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":[]},"categories":[15,86],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3431],"class_list":["post-52453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-pentagon-congress"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"WJIOZXDC2JBYRNVWDBERB6P3W4","arc_canonical_url":"\/congress\/2017\/05\/04\/us-senate-passes-government-spending-bill-through-september\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n