U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris meet with (L-R) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Leader House Minority Member Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on February 27, 2024 on the White House in Washington.
Roberto Schmidt | Getty Images
President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion congressional spending package Saturday, finalizing the remaining batch of bills in a long-awaited budget that is predicted to fund the federal government through Oct. 1.
Almost halfway through the budget yr, the president’s signature ends a months-long saga Congress struggling to secure a everlasting budget resolution and as a substitute introducing temporary measures, almost avoiding government shutdowns.
“The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government running, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security,” Biden said in a press release Saturday. “This agreement represents a compromise, which means neither side got everything they wanted.”
The weekend budget agreement slipped slightly below the wire before the midnight Friday funding deadline, typical of this fiscal yr where hour-to-11 disagreements derail just about all deals.
The Senate passed the budget by a 74-24 vote at about 2 a.m. Saturday morning, technically two hours after the deadline as a result of last-minute miscommunications. However, the White House said it will not initiate an official suspension because an agreement was finally reached and only procedural steps remained.
The House passed its own vote Friday morning after per week of attempting to reconcile a lingering dispute: funding for the Department of Homeland Security, which the White House disagreed with last weekend. The White House’s doubts further delayed the negotiation process just as lawmakers were preparing to release the legislative text of the budget proposal.
This trillion-dollar tranche of six budget bills will fund agencies related to defense, financial services, homeland security, health and human services, and more. In early March, Congress approved $459 billion for the primary six budget bills, which targeted agencies that were less partisan and easier to barter.
With the federal government finally receiving funding for the remaining of the fiscal yr, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-LA, has cleared himself of no less than one looming issue.
But in doing so, he could create one other one.
Hours before the House passed the spending package on Friday morning, hard-line House Republicans held a news conference through which they sharply criticized the bill. Moments after the House narrowly passed the bill, far-right Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene filed a motion to remove Johnson.
If the removal of the House speaker over budget disagreements looks as if a well-known story, that is since it is.
In October, after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy struck a cope with Democrats to avert a government shutdown, the House voted to oust him, making him the primary speaker ever faraway from his position. Johnson is attempting to appease the hard-line Republican wing of the House, generally known as the Freedom Caucus, to avoid an identical fate.
