Congress Passes Bill To Prevent Shutdown of Federal Government
Jose Nino
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Towards the end of February, Congress voted for a temporary spending bill to stop a partial government shutdown.
On February 29, 2024, the House voted 320 to 99 to back this measure. The Senate subsequently passed the bill on a 77-13 vote.
“I am happy to inform the American people that there will be no government shutdown on Friday,” declared Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. “And now, let’s finish the job of funding the government so we don’t have to do this again,” he added, making a reference to funding all of fiscal year 2024.
Several House Republicans came out from a closed-door meeting prior to the vote expressing their frustration with how Johnson was calling for them to support another deadline extension without additional spending cuts or other concessions for conservatives.
As far as the voter breakdown is concerned, the majority of Republicans support Speaker Johnson, with 113 Republican elected officials backing the short-term deal and 97 voting against it. On the Democratic side of the aisle, all but two elected officials — Massachusetts Congressman Jake Auchincloss and Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley — voted in support of this measure.
In a statement, Biden declared that in the coming days, Congress “must do its job and pass full-year funding bills that deliver for the American people.” He also called on House elected officials to green light a Senate-approved $95 billion national security bill to back Israel and Ukraine and provide humanitarian assistance to Palestinians in Gaza.
Arizona Congressman Andy Biggs, who opposed the deadline extensions, stated Johnson hasn’t worked hard enough to slash spending and that he wasted House Republicans’ only source of leverage by not going through with a shut down of the government.
“You basically emasculate your leverage when you say, ‘We’ll never do a government shutdown,’” he proclaimed.
Sadly, fiscal conservatism has become an afterthought in this epoch of big government, never-ending wars, and welfare statism — which all require massive spending to stay afloat. So we can never expect any form of fiscal restaurant from the political class.
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