SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — President Joe Biden signed a temporary spending bill a day before a potential government shutdown, pushing a fight with congressional Republicans over the federal budget into the new year, as wartime aid for Ukraine and Israel remains stalled.
The measure passed the House and Senate by wide bipartisan margins this week, ensuring the government remains open until after the holiday season, and potentially giving lawmakers more time to sort out their considerable differences over government spending levels for the current budget year. Biden signed the bill Thursday in San Francisco, where he was hosting the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit.
News of the signing came late at night. The president signed the bill at the Legion of Honor Museum, where he held a dinner for APEC members.
The spending package keeps government funding at current levels for roughly two more months while a long-term package is negotiated. It splits the deadlines for passing full-year appropriations bills into two dates: Jan. 19 for some federal agencies and Feb. 2 for others, creating two dates when there will be a risk of a partial government shutdown.
The House voted to prevent a government shutdown. Without enough GOP support, new Speaker Mike Johnson had to rely on Democrats. President Biden, meanwhile, has been at the APEC Summit in San Francisco this week to refocus on Asia. Biden’s nearly $106 billion request for aid to Israel, Ukraine and the U.S. border is also demanding attention from Speaker Johnson. The two-step approach was championed by new House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, and was not favored by many in the Senate, though all but one Democrat and 10 Republicans supported it because it ensured the government would not shut down for now.
Johnson has vowed that he will not support any further stopgap funding measures, known as continuing resolutions. He portrayed the temporary funding bill as setting the ground for a spending “fight” with the Senate next year.
The spending bill does not include the White House’s nearly $106 billion request for wartime aid for Israel and Ukraine. Nor does it provide humanitarian funding for Palestinians and other supplemental requests, including money for border security. Lawmakers are likely to turn their attention more fully to that request after the Thanksgiving holiday in hopes of negotiating a deal.
I don't but was wondering if there is a single good thing about government. Maybe the most expensive military industrial complex in the world deters would be attackers but we would probably have less enemies and stronger home fortifications with sound foreign policy.
Plenty of important functions. That is what the fight is about, isn't it? That's what I see. Getting our government back. We've been invaded.
We'd have less enemies if honorable men were in charge. We really are in a banana republic. It is not hyperbole. Two tiers of justice is real for everyone because the balance has been tilted to the globalist's. To the occupation. To the terrorists.
Shut it down! How else will the normies see? People aren't all there yet. Hardly. Still believing in the D vs R's BS.
When they see the 'same picture' with an D and R, we'll be where we need to be, as I see it.