Congress presented a comprehensive omnibus package of 1.7 trillion US dollars this week and quickly passed it to finance the government until September 2023.
The Senate passed the measure on Thursday by a vote of 68 to 29, and the House of Representatives passed it 225-201-1 on Friday.
It’s now heading to the White House, where President Biden is expected to approve the funding measure.
The following are five highlights of the 4,000-page bill:
Defence and non-defense expenditure
The bus invested around 773 billion US dollars for discretionary spending outside defense, compared with 858 billion US dollars for defense financing.
According to negotiators, the baseline for defense financing was increased by around 10 percent, while the baseline for nondefense saw around half of that increase if funding for veterans was not included, which Democrats had previously pushed for to be included in a separate section of the spending talks.
According to the Republicans who support the package, the bill touted this gap as a control of Democratic domestic spending while stepping up defense operations, with the pace of inflation faster than the pace of inflation, which reached an annual rate of 7.1 percent last month.
“The best military in the world will receive the necessary funding increase and thus exceed inflation. In the meantime, spending that has nothing to do with defense and is not veterans will be below the inflation rate, which would result in a real dollar cut,” said Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
Ukraine
Congress gave the green light for around $45 billion in emergency aid to support Ukraine, almost a year after Russia invaded the country.
This includes around $19.8 billion for arming and equipping Ukraine and European allies, $12.9 billion for economic aid and $6.2 billion for the Department of Defense.
The White House asked Congress last month for an additional $37.7 billion in aid for Ukraine. The surge in funding comes as some conservatives have criticized the aid and raised concerns about how that funding would fare in a divided Congress next year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Congress earlier this week in a historic speech. He was thus the first foreign head of state to address Congress in times of war since 1941, when Winston Churchill came to the country’s capital.
During the speech, Zelensky thanked the US for the help it has provided so far, but also asked for further help to ward off Russia’s ongoing attacks.
“Your money is not charity,” Zelensky said. “It is an investment in global security and democracy that we use most responsibly.”
Electoral census law
The Electoral Counting Reform Act also appears in the bill.
The measure reforms the Electoral Count Act of 1887 to clarify that if Congress counts Electoral College votes and increases the number of members required to object to a state’s voters, the vice president cannot reverse election results.
The bill was drafted in response to the events of January 6, 2021, when then-President Trump asked then-Vice President Mike Pence to block Congressional confirmation of Joe Biden’s victory.
Eighteen Republican senators, along with Democrats, voted to pass the bill as part of the wider funding package. This was seen as a remarkable rebuke from the former president, who spoke out in favour of keeping the 1887 law untouched.
Other Republican senators who voted against the full package have also called for ballot counting reform, including Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who endorsed the bill in a statement before the vote.
“In 2021, the theatrical act went too far and culminated in a mob disrupting the joint session of Congress to confirm the presidential election,” Paul wrote in the Louisville Courier-Journal, describing it as a necessary piece of legislation to protect the Electoral College.
Health care and government programs
Democrats have repeatedly acknowledged that the bill does not provide nearly as much funding for domestic programs as they would have liked to influence government funding, while still in control of both chambers.
However, the party has also celebrated a number of victories.
A list of investments in health and research includes $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, $9.2 billion for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and $950 million for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.
Democrats have also pointed to a $13.4 billion increase in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, a $28.5 billion increase for child nutrition programs, new Section 8 Housing Choice Vouchers that they say would support over 11,000 additional low-income households, and an increase in the maximum Pell Grant price.
“While we’re making important investments in these bills, they’re not perfect. I wish we could have done a lot more — including increasing funding for Title X and other family planning programs in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overthrow Roe v. Wade,” House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) said in a statement late Thursday.
“However, this bill is a bipartisan compromise,” she added. “We’ve proven that we can and must continue to work together for hard-working people all over the world. I am proud of this bill and call on all my colleagues to support it.”
Add-Ons
The Senate adopted several last-minute amendments to the bill on Thursday as it considered a number of amendments during a marathon voting session before final passage.
The eight amendments adopted include proposals aimed at using proceeds from assets seized by sanctioned Russian oligarchs for Ukraine, a measure to strengthen the protection of breastfeeding workers, and another aimed at compensating victims of 9/11.
Congress also approved an amendment that would continue Navy Lt. Ridge Alkonis’ salaries and benefits. According to Deseret News, his salary was cut when he served a three-year sentence in a prison in Japan following a car accident that killed two citizens.
The bus also included legislation introduced by Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) that would ban the use of TikTok on government phones and devices. However, the bill had already made it into the package before the vote on Thursday afternoon.
The TikTok bill was added after the Senate unanimously passed the bill earlier this month, and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) recently expressed support for the bill to be passed.
Mike Lillis contributed to this.