Facing yet another government funding deadline in just 12 hours, Speaker Mike Johnson shepherded a $1.2 trillion spending package through the House Friday, setting it up for a last-second vote in the Senate to avoid a shutdown.
The final vote on the massive spending bill was 286 – 134. Notably, more Democrats voted for the deal than Republicans. The majority of Republicans – 112 in total – voted against the Speaker Johnson-backed measure.
The 1,000 page measure brings together funding for six of the 12 appropriations spending bills that need to be passed annually. It packages nearly 75 percent of the government’s annual funding into just one vote, called a minibus.
Despite Johnson’s victory, the clock is ticking and the bill still must be passed in the Senate and signed by President Biden to avoid a partial government shutdown which would ensue after 11:59 p.m. Friday.
The trillion dollar deal – the details of which were only revealed on Thursday – will provide money for the Departments of Defense, Financial Services, Homeland Security, Labor-HHS-Education, State-Foreign Operations and the Legislative Branch.
Speaker Mike Johnson released the details of a $1.2 trillion government funding package on Thursday
House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good, R-Va., rallied Republicans against the GOP House Speaker to vote against the bill
The deal was opposed by many notable conservatives including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., Rep. Mike Waltz, R-Fla., and nearly 100 other Republicans.
Greene went as far as to file a motion to vacate the Speaker while votes were ongoing, irate over his support of massive spending – setting up a tumultuous process that could take the gavel from Johnson.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said the bill would pass when asked just before the votes, indicating that Democrats are largely on board with the deal.
When the final tally was counted, nearly 200 Democrats rallied together to get the funding bill across the line.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has said that the Democrat majority in the Senate would work to pass the agreement earlier this week, calling the deal ‘good news.’
Schumer bragged the agreement secured funding boosts to childcare services, disease research, mental health programs and suicide prevention.
Senate Republicans, meanwhile, have railed against the deal.
‘The Swamp is pushing this appalling funding bill with lightning speed, so that Americans don’t see what’s in it,’ Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted on X.
Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., posted on X: ‘Why does the minibus fund a $500k grant to help a closed hospital in Maryland document its history? We are $34 TRILLION in debt. Washington can’t keep wasting your tax dollars on this stupid crap!’
Many conservative House Republicans were also upset with the measure and the way Johnson rushed a vote on the biblically-long bill, not giving members the usual 72 hours to read the fine print.
‘We don’t need 72 hours to vote against a bad bill,’ conservative House Freedom Caucus Chair Bob Good said at a press conference before the vote.
He and likeminded Republicans led the charge in opposing the legislation.
‘Why are we in a rush to keep this government open that is so harming the American people by the very policies which they are suffering under.’
Good decried the package for maintaining ‘Pelosi-Schumer policies and spending levels’ and noted how the bill actually ‘increases the spending levels by about $60 billion.’
Another Freedom Caucus member Rep. Andy Ogles, R-Tenn., said ‘It’s clear that the Democrats own the speakers gavel.’
Still, GOP leadership touted conservative wins like a three percent increase in defense spending, retaining the Hyde amendment and a ban on gas stove restrictions.
But rank-and-file conservatives have called out other provisions like the bill’s $200 million for a new FBI headquarters and $300 million that goes toward the Ukrainian Assistance Initiative.
The House passed $1.2 trillion in government funding just hours before a deadline Friday night
Congress similarly passed a $460 billion funding deal on March 8 just hours before the money allocated for the agencies ran out.
The deal ‘secured key conservative policy victories’ in the roughly $460 billion measure despite a ‘divided government’ and rejected ‘left-wing proposals,’ Speaker Johnson said at the time.
That bill included funding for six federal agencies – including Commerce-Justice-Science, Energy-Water, Interior-Environment, Military Construction-VA and Transportation-HUD.
It also imposed ‘deep cuts’ to the EPA (10%), ATF (7%) and FBI (6%), which Johnson said has ‘threatened our freedoms and our economy.’