A Stopgap Spending Bill Might Be Coming Up In The Wake Of The Shutdown

To restrict discussion and clear the way for a final vote to approve the budget bill, a procedural vote passed unanimously at 82-6, setting up final approval just hours before government funding is scheduled to expire at midnight Wednesday unless lawmakers commit to an earlier timeline. The budget bill, which will keep the government funded by December 11, passed the House by a broad margin of 359-57 last week and is also expected to pass the Senate. The tensions are growing day by day and are not coming to a stop. The elections are coming near. With the bill being circulated for the approval might spark up the fire between democrats and republicans again.

Although well short of bipartisan full-year appropriations packages, the pending compromise is the culmination of bipartisan talks and an arrangement between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, which threatened to fall apart just a few weeks before the deadline for appropriations. But after the compromise is signed into law, the prospect of a shutdown before the presidential election in November will be eliminated from the equation, even though it sets up the possibility of a spending dispute and a possible shutdown after the referendum.  At a moment when contentious pressures are running extremely high in the middle of a high-stakes struggle in the Senate over the nomination of President Donald Trump’s recently confirmed Supreme Court candidate, Amy Coney Barrett, the initiative to avert a shutdown is taking place.

To confirm Barrett before the November election, Trump put forward the nomination to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg void. Senate Republicans are now moving ahead fast. Democrats accused GOP senators of deceit and a deceptive seizure of power after refusing to take up the high court candidate of then-President Barack Obama, Merrick Garland, in 2016. Pelosi and Mnuchin’s bipartisan finance deal contains a measure expected to transfer tens of billions of dollars to the Food Credit Company, a priority for Republicans and congressional lawmakers from farming states and districts, to replenish vital farmers’ assistance. Because Democrats expressed fears that the funding was being used by the Trump administration to allocate funds to preferred political parties, this entails some limitations.

About $8 billion in nutrition aid is now included in the measure — a key Democratic priority during talks. The Democrats had originally proposed a stopgap bill after talks broke down, which left out farm relief and nutrition assistance and were preparing to vote last week on that plan. But the danger of pushing the bill without bipartisan consensus — and the likelihood that agriculture-heavy district Democrats would defect — served to increase the probability of a government shutdown considering the shrinking timeframe before the government funding deadline September 30. Inevitably both sides returned to the table and hammered out a deal.

After the Senate approves the stopgap bill, appropriators’ interest will turn to what will be done for the next two months. Lawmakers of both bodies claim that the objective continues to approve and amend spending measures for the balance of the fiscal year. They also understand that the November election outcome will play an essential part in what will be achieved before the new Congress — and likely the next administration — takes office in 2021. Trump and Biden are leaving no stone unturned with the elections. Both have delivered a great debate and are also looking forward to many such events before the final results. With people making up their minds for the new President, Trump is not ready to leave hopes and has also said that the transition will not be a peaceful one this time.

With many things going on, one of the biggest challenges is of the pandemic and the vaccine, along with bringing life back to normal. However, this normal word seems easy when you pen it down, but it is extremely difficult when you think about it. Life will be normal, but not so soon. Now that people are trying to come out and lead a life that they used to, bringing the economy back on track will be a tough challenge for the government. With more than half of the population jobless and being forced to starve, creating jobs is the biggest challenge. This stopgap spending bill can prove to be of some relief if it gets approved. The Trump administration has demonstrated that the equal allocation of payments cannot be trusted, said Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow, a leading Democrat on the Senate Agriculture Committee.

Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, the Republican chairman of the Agriculture group, was upset that the Democrats had excluded farm assistance. I recognize that the secretary is unhappy with people and what he has done or will do or whatever in finance. But this is badly needed, and 45 to 50 programs are in danger, right in the midst of the COVID problem, the agricultural crisis, and the whole sector is suffering. You need to come up with some aide so that the sectors can survive and the people can earn. What will they do when the savings are all exhausted? How is everyone going to survive? This is the major concern that has made the government think of the bill to keep things running and improve slowly.

At stake in the bill’s passage is about one-third of the day-to-day spending of the federal government that goes to Congress-funded cabinet department activities. In the Senate earlier this year, the annual budget process broke down. It is unclear, though certainly doubtful that the $1.3 trillion in department spending bills will be passed this year, except in a lame-duck post-election session, especially if Joe Biden is elected to succeed Trump. In the past, both Democrats and Republicans have tried to use timelines for government funding and must-pass provisional spending measures as leverage to try to gain compromises on Washington’s list elsewhere. Invariably, such attempts have failed. The thing that is needed right now is the bill should be passed, and the government must keep working for the betterment of the people.