U.S. Set To Narrowly Avoid Government Shutdown After Senate Passes Last-Minute Funding Bill - Forbes

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Topline

The Senate late Thursday passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government until at least February that had cleared the House earlier in the day, defusing a feud over Covid-19 vaccine mandates hours before the government would have been forced to shut down.

Key Facts

Senators voted 69-28 to pass the resolution and send it to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The vote came hours after the House of Representatives also passed a continuing resolution in a 221-212 vote, with one Republican — Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) — joining every House Democrat to pass the spending bill.

The federal government was initially set to run out of money at midnight on Friday, but the continuing resolution will extend government funding until at least February 18, giving Congress more time to pass a full budget for the remainder of the fiscal year.

A handful of conservative lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) had threatened to hold up the resolution unless the Senate defunded President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates for private employers.

Senators voted on an amendment to defund vaccine mandates immediately before passing the continuing resolution, but the amendment failed 48-50.

Key Background

Congress passed its last stopgap spending measure before a looming government shutdown in late September, extending government funding for about nine weeks. If the House and Senate had failed to pass another short-term funding bill by Friday, nonessential government services would have ground to a halt and many federal employees would’ve gone without pay. Despite the push to leverage the crisis to defund Biden’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates for many workers, including a vaccine-or-test rule for companies with 100 or more employees, both Biden and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remained confident Thursday the government wouldn’t shut down.

Tangent

Some of the Biden Administration’s Covid-19 vaccine rules are already on hold due to court challenges. An appeals court halted the vaccine-or-test policy for large private employers last month, judges in Missouri and Louisiana stopped a vaccine mandate for Medicare- and Medicaid-funded healthcare facilities earlier this week and a federal judge temporarily put a mandate for federal contractors on hold in three Republican-led states that sued over the rule.

What To Watch For

Congress also needs to raise or suspend the debt ceiling — a cap on federal borrowing — in the coming weeks. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen estimated last month the federal government could run out of funds by December 15 if the debt limit isn’t raised, possibly triggering a first-ever default on U.S. obligations.