Washington averted a government shutdown after an up-and-down week saw House Republicans offering a united front and resistant Democrats cornered.
The key moment on Friday was an early evening procedural vote in the US Senate that ended debate on a continuing resolution (CR). The final 62-38 vote included 10 Senate Democratic votes in the affirmative. Their support pushed the count above the required 60-vote threshold.
Democratic-caucusing Sens. Chuck Schumer, Catherine Cortez Masto, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Kirsten Gillibrand, Maggie Hassan, Angus King, Gary Peters, Brian Schatz, and Jeanne Shaheen all voted yes. Republican Sen. Rand Paul voted no in what was otherwise a party-line vote.
A final vote then followed later, shortly after 6 p.m., and passed comfortably.
“The CR is a bad bill, but as bad as the CR is, I believe allowing Donald Trump to take even much more power via a government shutdown is a far worse option,” said Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer hours before the vote as he announced he would be voting yes.
The spending plan’s passage set off another round of Democratic Party agita and soul-searching, with Schumer and other Senate Democrats saying they had no choice but to help push through the 99-page bill written by Republicans.
It will keep the government open until Sept. 30 with GOP priorities attached and little in the way of concessions to Democrats.
The bill is set to offer increased spending on issues like defense and immigration and cuts elsewhere to other programs.
The changes overall are a proverbial drop in the bucket of America’s fiscal situation given the country has carried multitrillion-dollar budget deficits in recent years.
“What we’re leaving in terms of debt, what the next generation will be inheriting, and at this point it’s not just an economic risk, I think it’s a huge national security risk,” Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, said Friday in a new episode of Yahoo Finance’s Capitol Gains podcast.
Her group recently pointed out that the US government has already run up $1.1 trillion in new deficit spending in just the first five months of the current fiscal year.
The group also found that this week’s bill will likely have the net fiscal impact of adding $7 billion to the debt in the years ahead, largely because cuts to the IRS will allow more people to avoid paying taxes and drive down collections.
It also doesn’t help that this week’s fight came during a climate of deep economic unease. Stock sell-offs have put markets into a correction at the same time as firms slash S&P 500 year-end targets. Trump’s trade war also continues unabated and, so far, the president appears unconcerned about its impact on the economy.
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