Could Trump’s Government still shut down? Senate leaders have reached a broad, long-term spending deal just one day before the latest in a string of government shutdown deadlines. “The budget deal does not have everything Democrats want, it does not have everything the Republicans want, but it has a great deal of what the American people want,” Schumer said in his speech on the House Floor.
That was a turnaround from Tuesday when Trump had said he would “love” a government shutdown if he did not get his way on immigration.
The deal is an attempt to keep the government open and ensure that this is the last time Congress will have to pass an incremental spending bill for the remainder of the fiscal year. Among the approved measures are $6 billion for opioid treatment, $20 billion for infrastructure, $2 billion for research at the National Institute of Health, $7 billion for community health centers and $70 billion in disaster aid. The low-income children’s health insurance program, or CHIP, would be extended for ten years instead of six. And it extends the debt limit, the maximum amount of which the government can borrow, for one year.
The measure was a win for Republican allies of the Pentagon and Democrats seeking more for infrastructure projects and combatting opioid abuse. But it represented a bitter defeat for many liberal Democrats who sought to use the party’s leverage on the budget to resolve the plight of immigrant “Dreamers” who face deportation after being brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
Senate leaders hope to approve the measure Thursday and send it to the House for a confirming vote before the government begins to shut down Thursday at midnight. But hurdles remain to avert the second shutdown in a month.
The agreement would increase the government’s borrowing cap to prevent a first-ever default on US obligations that looms in just a few weeks. The debt limit would be suspended through March of 2019, putting the next vote on it safely past this year’s midterm elections.