The U.S. Capitol is seen through a Cannon House Office Building window on Dec. 13, 2023. (Carlos Bongioanni/Stars and Stripes)
WASHINGTON — Congress on Thursday voted to fund the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Pentagon and other federal agencies through early March, narrowly avoiding a partial government shutdown.
The Senate signed off on a short-term funding extension in a 77-18 vote, followed by a 314-108 vote in the House.
The bill will maintain spending for veterans programs, military construction and other federal agencies and programs through March 1 and the Pentagon through March 8. Funding was set to expire Friday for parts of the VA and Feb. 2 for the Defense Department.
The approved legislation gives lawmakers time to pass 12 bills allocating a total of $1.66 trillion to fund the entirety of the government through the 2024 fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 2023, and ends Sept. 30.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the stopgap measure will be sent to President Joe Biden’s desk before a midnight deadline Friday.
Failure to approve the bill in time would have shut down VA offices that provide career counseling and transition-assistance services and furloughed thousands of VA employees. However, medical and benefits services would have continued due to prior funding.
“Avoiding a shutdown is very good news for every American, especially for our veterans, our parents, our children, our farmers, our small businesses and so many others who would have felt the sting of a government shutdown,” Schumer said prior to the Senate vote.
The House took up the bill shortly after the Senate, ignoring demands from far-right Republicans who wanted to see steep spending cuts and immigration policy changes in exchange for their support.
Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, railed against the stopgap measure for maintaining the same spending levels as fiscal 2023 and criticized Republicans who agreed to vote for it.
“They’re going to vote to continue to spend at that level. Not only that, they’re going to vote to continue to fund the radical progressive policies embedded in it, continue to fund the bureaucracy that’s at war with the American people, continue to fund open borders,” he said.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., had said he would not support additional stopgap funding deals after Congress approved a short-term spending bill in November but relented this week as work continued on the 12 individual appropriations bills.
That ongoing negotiation process will involve addressing “partisan poison pills” included in House versions of the bills last year, said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
The Pentagon and VA funding bills approved by the Republican-led House limited women’s access to abortion and attacked diversity initiatives and efforts to mitigate the effects of climate change.
The threat of another shutdown will continue to loom until Congress adopts compromise funding legislation for the remainder of the fiscal year.
Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, said she was encouraged by the “pace and tone” of the current negotiations.
“There is now a mutual understanding that the only way to finally end the saga of 2024 funding is to write appropriations bills that can earn the support of both Democrats and Republicans in the House and in the Senate,” she said.
