Congress Readies Bill to Keep Government Open for a Week -- 2nd Update
April 27 2017 - 11:55PM
Dow Jones News
By Natalie Andrews and Kristina Peterson
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers prepared to vote Friday on a weeklong
spending bill needed to avoid a shutdown of the U.S. government on
Saturday, but Democratic resistance added uncertainty and
volatility to the day.
In a related development, Republicans signaled late Thursday
that they were still short of the votes needed to revive and pass
legislation to replace most of the Affordable Care Act.
House GOP leaders had been trying to corral votes in hopes of
passing the bill before President Donald Trump's 100th day in
office on Saturday. But House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R.,
Calif.) said Thursday night that the chamber wouldn't vote on the
bill Friday or Saturday.
The developments showed the difficulty GOP leaders have faced in
trying to come to terms with Democrats on a spending bill to keep
the government open after Friday while also pressing forward on a
health-care bill uniformly opposed by Democrats.
With the government's funding set to expire Saturday at 12:01
a.m. ET, Republican leaders have prepared a weeklong stopgap
measure that would give lawmakers more time to settle on a spending
bill to fund the government through the end of the fiscal year on
Sept. 30.
The most contentious issues appear to have been resolved, but
Democrats are still trying to block some Republican policy
measures. House Democrats have concerns about the five-month
spending bill, aides said late Thursday.
Mr. McCarthy said Republicans might have to pass the stopgap
bill without Democratic support. That could pose a risk to the
bill's passage, given that Democratic votes have often been needed
for government spending bills.
Some House Democrats had threatened to oppose the bill Friday if
House Republican leaders also brought up their health-care bill for
a vote this week. That bill would repeal much of the 2010 health
law, championed by Democrats, and replace it with conservative
policy.
While GOP leaders have gotten closer to marshaling the votes
needed to pass the health-care bill, a significant number of
centrist Republicans remain opposed or undecided on the bill.
"If Republicans pursue this partisan path of forcing Americans
to pay more for less and destabilizing our country's health-care
system...Republicans should be prepared to pass a one-week
continuing resolution on their own," House Minority Whip Steny
Hoyer (D., Md.) said Thursday.
The Senate has also been expected to act on the short-term
spending measure before the Saturday deadline, but Sen. Chuck
Schumer of New York, the chamber's Democratic leader, signaled
Thursday evening that members of his party weren't ready to sign
off on the legislation.
Negotiations on the five-month spending bill could nonetheless
wrap up quickly, easing passage of the stopgap measure.
Lawmakers said they hoped to pass a spending bill next week for
the rest of the fiscal year. Lawmakers from both parties said they
are trying to avoid a government shutdown and that the one-week
measure is needed because negotiators ran out of time to finish
some narrow pieces of the five-month spending bill before the
Saturday deadline.
"They were close, but [there was] not enough time to get it
published, and so that's what necessitated the five-day" measure,
said Rep. Steve Womack (R., Ark.), a member of the House
Appropriations Committee.
The spending bill is expected to increase funding for the
military and border security, measures both Republicans and
Democrats have signaled they would support.
President Donald Trump placed the blame on Democrats for failing
to get to a final deal, posting several tweets Thursday
morning.
"I promise to rebuild our military and secure our border.
Democrats want to shut down the government. Politics!" he
wrote.
In the House, Democratic votes will be needed to pass the
five-month spending bill because some conservative members of the
Republican majority are expected to oppose it. Democratic votes
will also be needed in the Senate, where the bill requires 60 votes
to pass; there are 52 Republican senators.
A hurdle was cleared Wednesday, as White House Chief of Staff
Reince Priebus told Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House
Democratic leader, that the administration would continue making
"cost-sharing reduction" payments to health insurers, despite the
lack of an appropriation for them in the April spending bill.
The assurance appeared to satisfy Democrats, who have warned
that insurers would stop offering policies under the Affordable
Care Act if the payments ended.
The stopgap resolution would also extend health-care coverage by
one week for more than 22,000 retired coal miners and their
dependents who are facing a loss of care with the government
deadline. Lawmakers are wrangling over whether to extend the
funding permanently or on a more limited basis.
Write to Natalie Andrews at Natalie.Andrews@wsj.com and Kristina
Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
April 27, 2017 23:40 ET (03:40 GMT)
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