President Biden signs the shutdown plan into law, pushing the issue into 2024
President Joe Biden has signed into law an idea championed by new Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, which implements a temporary "two-step" solution to Washington’s spending fights and will give Washington and the country a temporary reprieve from shutdown fights at least for the holiday season.
After a series of overwhelmingly bipartisan votes — 87-11 in the Senate and 336-95 in the House of Representatives — the president signed the bill late Thursday night while in California for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference.
The 32-page law sidestepped yet another self-inflicted Washington crisis and averted a government shutdown that, among many other impacts, had threatened to cut off the paychecks of TSA workers just ahead of the busy Thanksgiving travel week.
It’s "a great outcome for the American people," said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) Wednesday night after a late-night vote in his chamber sent the bill to Biden’s desk.
The business community also breathed a sigh of relief that a stoppage, and the economic effects that would have come with it, was averted. Business Roundtable CEO Joshua Bolten offered thanks in a statement to “members of Congress for working together,” while adding that he hoped the cooperation could be repeated next year when the spending debates resume.
The deal's two steps include funds for some areas of the federal government — places like the Agriculture and Transportation departments — until Jan. 19, 2024. Authorization for the remainder of Washington's bureaucracy is set to expire just two weeks later on Feb. 2. The bill gained Democratic support after it didn't include Republican demands around things like spending cuts for the IRS and immigration reform at the southern border. It also doesn't address additional money for Israel or Ukraine.
More fights on the horizon
While Johnson did successfully navigate the divided Congress in his first major test as speaker, he does appear to have set things up for even more contentious spending fights to come.
Tuesday’s vote saw Johnson relying on Democrats to get his plan passed with more than 90 Republicans voting against him.
House conservatives then punished their speaker Wednesday by voting en-masse to tank appropriations bills that had been passed previously on GOP party-line votes. The ensuing gridlock forced Johnson to cancel further votes on those bills and send members home through Thanksgiving to, as he put it, “cool off.” (Not a good omen for the negotiations to come.)
“I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing — one — that I can go campaign on and say we did,” said one of Johnson’s GOP opponents, Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas), in a passionate speech on the House floor Wednesday before he left town.
The pressure, meanwhile, will increase in January, thanks to a provision in the debt ceiling pact earlier this year that aims to force lawmakers to reach a larger deal on fiscal year 2024 spending through September.
The provision, agreed to by then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy and President Biden, will cut all federal spending by 1% if Republicans and Democrats fail to reach an agreement around the entire fiscal year. The threat of cuts to politically popular programs ranging from the Pentagon to the social safety net could, lawmakers and others hope, force compromise.
But that, as with everything on Capitol Hill these days, remains to be seen.
Ben Werschkul is Washington correspondent for Yahoo Finance.
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