The GOP-led House overcame party infighting Tuesday evening to approve a rule that will allow consideration of four fiscal year 2024 appropriations bills for Defense, Agriculture, State-Foreign Operations and Homeland Security.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) was the only Republican to vote against the House measure.
Congress has until Saturday at midnight to agree on a federal budget or force a government shutdown. Yet the individual House bills face challenges from conservative members of the GOP who have dug in against funding for Ukraine in the Defense bill. They’re also reportedly disputing some funding in the Homeland Security and Agriculture bills.
And even if the party-line bills manage to pass in the House, they face an uphill battle in the Democratic-led Senate, which typically takes a more bipartisan approach when it comes to higher spending levels.
The vote in the lower chamber Tuesday came the same evening that the Senate voted to forward a bipartisan stopgap spending measure that would keep the government funded at current levels until November 17.
That short-term deal, called a continuing resolution (CR), would allocate some $6 billion in aid for Ukraine amid its 19-month-long war with Russia. While it’s far less than the White House’s request for $20.6 billion in additional Ukraine funding, it faces an uncertain fate in the House, where Representatives are focused on long-term spending initiatives, and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has asserted that funding for Ukraine should be dealt with in a supplemental request and not added to a stopgap bill.
On Tuesday night shortly after the House vote, McCarthy told reporters that his chamber would move a continuing resolution, bring a rule to the floor to secure our border and avert a shutdown.
“We are going to give Democrats and this President the opportunity to actually [fund border security] and keep this government open,” McCarthy vowed.
