Government Shutdown Still Looms as House Passes Spending Bill - The New York Times

Even as the House voted to fund the government through mid-February, Senate Republicans were still threatening to force a shutdown over vaccine mandates.

WASHINGTON — A divided House on Thursday approved legislation to keep the government funded through mid-February, but a group of Senate Republicans was still threatening to force a shutdown over the Biden administration’s vaccine and testing mandate for large employers.

With less than 36 hours before funding was set to lapse, the House voted 221 to 212 to keep the government open through Feb.

A few Republicans warned that they would object unless they were granted a vote on an amendment that would bar funding for carrying out President Biden’s vaccine and testing mandate for the private sector.

Leaders in both parties have warned against a government shutdown and have urged their colleagues to find alternative ways to register their opposition to the vaccine mandate.

Biden projected confidence that a shutdown would be avoided, telling reporters after a speech at the National Institutes of Health that he had spoken to both Senate leaders and that “there is a plan in place, unless somebody decides to be totally erratic.”.

Senior Democrats and Republicans in Congress hailed the spending agreement, saying it would afford them more time to resolve outstanding disputes and approve longer-term legislation to fund the government next year.

While lawmakers have long conceded that they need more time to negotiate the dozen bills that would fund the government for the entire fiscal year, the stopgap plan had become snarled in partisan disagreements over how long it should last and what additional funding proposals could be attached to it.

He said that if Democrats continued to push for policies that Republicans oppose, such as lower levels of defense funding and the elimination of the Hyde Amendment, which blocks federal funding for abortions, “we’ll be having the same conversation in February.”1

Shelby’s party would allow the short-term spending bill to advance in the Senate in time to avoid a shutdown this weekend?

Senators Mike Lee of Utah and Roger Marshall of Kansas, both Republicans, led the push to cut off funding for the vaccine mandate.

“I’ve been very supportive of a mandate for federal government, for military, for all the people that work on government payroll,” Mr.

Several senior Republicans who have objected to the mandate have warned that the dispute is not worth a government shutdown, particularly as the nation confronts a new coronavirus variant

But it would take only one senator lodging an objection to slow the spending bill’s passage and force a lapse in government funding