House set to pass $1.7 trillion spending bill to fund government until next fall

WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives was poised Friday to pass a $1.7 trillion spending bill that will avert an end-of-year government shutdown and fund the government until next fall.

A day after the Senate approved the bill in a mostly bipartisan vote, the Democratic-held House was expected to approve it before jetting out of Washington, D.C., ahead of the Christmas holiday.

Lawmakers were racing to get the bill approved before a partial government shutdown would occur at midnight Friday.

Democrats and moderate Republicans also want to lock in government funding before a new GOP-controlled House next year could make it harder to find compromise on spending.

Once the bill passes Congress, it will go to President Biden’s desk for his signature.

Certain passage was looming despite howls of opposition by GOP Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.)

“This is a monstrosity,” said McCarthy, who is seeking to shore up his support with far right-wing colleagues. “It’s one of the most shameful actions I have ever seen in this body.”

Scores of lawmakers from both parties have already left town for the holiday and are expected to vote by proxy in a system set up to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bill includes about $45 billion in additional aid to Ukraine to help it battle the Russian invasion. Some Republicans strongly oppose that assistance, raising the urgency to include it in the bill before they take control of the House on Jan. 1.

It also includes last-second amendments to extend health care for 9/11 survivors and to boost compensation for the families of people who were killed in the attacks, earmarking $1 billion to fund the 9/11 health program, which is facing a $3 billion long-term deficit.

Schumer had been unable to attach a larger measure that would have ended the shortfall permanently, but the amendment that passed was expected to delay any crisis until at least 2027.

The other measure was everything Schumer and Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, also a Democrat, had hoped for: $3 billion to help spouses and children of people slain on 9/11 get the same compensation as more distant relatives.

Both of those 9/11-related measures were omitted from the original Senate compromise bill and were added in a final round of bipartisan haggling.

The bill also contains roughly $40 billion in emergency spending in the U.S., mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

And, of course, it includes scores of policy changes unrelated to spending that lawmakers sought to include in what is going to be the last major bill of the Congress, or else they start from scratch next year in a divided Congress where Republicans will be returning to the majority in the House.

One of the most notable examples was a historic revision to federal election law that aims to prevent any future presidents or presidential candidates from trying to overturn an election. The bipartisan overhaul of the Electoral Count Act is in direct response to former President Donald Trump’s efforts to convince Republican lawmakers and then-Vice President Mike Pence to object to the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.

The bill also allowed Congress to follow through on some of the most consequential bills it had passed over the past two years, such as a measure aiming to boost computer chip production in the U.S. and another to expand health care services to veterans exposed to toxic burn pits.

Some $5 billion was provided to help the Veterans Administration implement some of the changes called for in the PACT Act, and the amount of money provided specifically for VA health care soared 22% to nearly $119 billion.