The United States government is scheduled to shut down today March 11 unless Congress passes the estimated 1.5 trillion dollar government spending bill or passes a continuing resolution to keep government funding status quo until a bill that can pass both chambers of Congress.
Included in this current omnibus bill is to fund all government agencies plus one added spending item.
The added expense is a 13.6 billion dollar request for humanitarian aid for United States troops who are deployed to Eastern Europe. In the original proposal, there was 22.5 billion in the bill for the continuing COVID-19 response but that was stripped out of the bill’s final House bill.
This year’s spending budget bill is 2,741 pages long. The spending package came with great bipartisan support. Just like every year’s spending package, the bill is broken down into defense funding and domestic funding. The Defense Department got a 5.6% increase for a total of 782 billion and domestic got a 6.7% increase for a total of 730 billion.
The spending package would keep the government funded until September 30th, the final vote in the house was 260–17,1, and the additional defense funding passed with a vote of 361–69.
The spending package is currently in the Senate for debate and a vote. If the Senate wants to make changes they will most likely pass another continuing resolution to keep the government funded through March 15 that way the updated package would have time for changes and a vote before the Friday midnight deadline.
If the Senate does make any changes to the package that passed the House it would need to go back to the House for another vote. The House already passed the continuing resolution last night to extend Government funding through March 15th.
