WASHINGTON – The House approved a $1.7 trillion spending package Friday, a day after the Senate adopted the sweeping bill despite a last-minute tussle between Republicans and Democrats over southern border policies.
The House vote, which provides funding of domestic and foreign programs through Sept. 30, took place only hours before the government would have run out of money and would have had to initiate a partial federal shutdown.
The chamber passed the legislation largely along party lines, 225-201, with nine Republicans joining Democrats to approve the spending package. One Democrat sided with Republicans in opposing the bill.
The package now heads to President Joe Biden for his signature.
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On Thursday, the Senate added a list of amendments to the hefty spending package during their hours-long voting session, including legislation that provides new workplace protections for pregnant and breast-feeding workers.
The bipartisan legislation allocates $772.5 billion for non-defense discretionary programs and $858 billion in defense funding, including record amounts for domestic programs and defense priorities, according to the bill’s summary. It also bans TikTok from government-issued devices, expands retirement savings options for Americans, and overhauls electoral procedures to avoid a repeat of the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection.
Also included in the bill is about $45 billion in additional emergency assistance to Ukraine, which Congress approved after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of Congress.
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“Your money is not charity,” Zelenskyy told lawmakers, including some Republicans wary of sending a “blank check” to Ukraine when they take over the House in January. “It’s an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.”
That impassioned speech failed to sway Tennessee GOP Rep. Tim Burchett, who called the spending bill “full of garbage” and explicitly criticized the aid to Ukraine.
“That works out to about $200 million per congressional district,” he said on the House floor Friday morning before the vote. “I wonder what we could have spent that on back in east Tennessee.”
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., pushed back on Burchett’s broadside.
“This sweeping package is anything but garbage, as the previous speaker intoned,” Hoyer said. “It is in fact the essence of supporting our national security, our domestic security, and the welfare of our people. That is not garbage.”
Despite running more than 4,000 pages, the spending package left out several measures demanded by progressive advocates, including the extension of a more generous child tax credit and legislation known as the EQUAL Act that would eliminate federal sentencing disparities between drug offenses involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine.
A look at some of the bill’s most notable provisions: