Senate sends spending bill to House after US government shutdown

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The US government has shut down – again – after a Republican senator delayed a final vote on a two-year bipartisan spending bill that was designed to end shutdowns for two years.

It is the second shutdown of the US government in less than a month.

Read more: US$300 billion bipartisan spending deal

The Senate finally passed by 71 votes to 28 the 650-page budget deal, which would increase federal spending by 300 billion US dollars, early on Friday morning. The bill has been sent to the House of Representatives.

What next?

The shutdown is expected to be short, and could even be over by the time Americans wake up on Friday morning.

The Senate passed the bill in the early hours of Friday, and the bill now heads to an uncertain future in the House.

There is resistance to the measure from both parties in the House: the Republican Freedom Caucus over the deficit, and Democrats over immigration.

US Capitol in Washington, DC. /Reuters Photo

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi has opposed the bill because she has not been guaranteed a debate on the future of the Dreamers, people brought to the US illegally as children.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said on Thursday he was hopeful the Republican-controlled chamber would pass the bill. “I think we will,” he said. “It’s going to need bipartisan support. We are going to deliver our share of support.”

If passed in the House, the bill would need to be signed President Trump to enter force.

The Office of Management and Budget on Thursday evening instructed federal agencies to prepare for a shutdown, although a senior administration official insisted that it would be over “within a few hours.”

What’s in the spending bill?

The new budget bill, which was only unveiled on Wednesday evening, would raise spending on defense by around 165 billion US dollars, a popular measure with Republicans.

Many Democrats are on board because the bill would increase spending on domestic areas, including infrastructure and healthcare, by almost 131 billion US dollars over the next two years.

The additional spending would be financed by borrowed money.

The bill would stave off the risk of another shutdown for two years, and extend the government’s debt ceiling to March 2019. It also includes 90 billion US dollars in additional emergency aid for for areas hit by natural disasters.

Why did Paul delay the vote?

Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is fiercely opposed to the spending increase, had held up the vote by demanding a debate on his amendment to keep Congress within budget caps.

The bipartisan bill, agreed by congressional leaders and backed by Trump, was designed as a compromise to end fighting over spending for two years.

However, it would add to the debt and mark another shift away from traditionally fiscal conservative Republican thinking. The party’s tax plan passed in December added an estimated 1.5 trillion US dollars to the national debt.

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Paul, one of several lawmakers elected as part of the anti-deficit “Tea Party movement”, accused his Republican colleagues of hypocrisy when speaking on the floor of the House on Thursday evening.

Read more: US senator delays vote on bill

The senator from Kentucky said the bill would “loot the Treasury. ... The reason I‘m here tonight is to put people on the spot. I want them to feel uncomfortable.”

Senator Rand Paul in the chamber of the US House of Representatives on January 30, 2018 in Washington, DC. /VCG Photo

“I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” Paul said. “Now we have Republicans hand in hand with Democrats offering us trillion-dollar deficits. I can’t in ... good faith, just look the other way because my party is now complicit in the deficits. Really who is to blame? Both parties.”

A failure to pass a spending bill in January led to a three-day government shutdown.

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