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\n

The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December \u2014 preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at a cost for House GOP leaders, who are now managing blowback from Republicans angry about the contents of the funding patch<\/a> Senate leaders crafted and President Donald Trump endorsed.<\/p>\n

The legislation would fund the government beyond the October start of the new fiscal year, keeping federal agencies running on current budgets through Dec. 11. It also allows incumbents to campaign for reelection without the threat of a government shutdown feeding into political messaging about dysfunction in Washington.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to get a longer-term deal. But at a minimum, let’s ensure that we can continue to see government properly funded and functioning,\u201d House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told reporters Tuesday, noting the \u201cchaos\u201d and \u201cuncertainty\u201d of last year\u2019s record-breaking shutdown.<\/p>\n

Besides funding the government through mid-December, the bill<\/u><\/a> would temporarily block the White House from finalizing a rule to put political appointees in charge of approving federal grants.<\/p>\n

It would also delay a ban set to kick in next month on intoxicating hemp products \u2014 to the dissatisfaction of House hard-liners, who threatened to vote Tuesday afternoon against teeing up debate on other bills this week and potentially block any significant House floor action between now and November.<\/p>\n

Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, chair of the Freedom Caucus, was among the Republicans who voted no on the funding patch and said he would oppose moving forward with debate on other bills too. He scoffed at the last-minute pressure campaign<\/u><\/a> from the White House and hemp industry leaders promising to regulate intoxicating products in lieu of proceeding with the ban lawmakers enacted last November.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey had 10 months,\u201d Harris said in an interview this week, knocking the Trump administration for not taking action sooner to crack down on the products currently sold in the U.S. without age restrictions or other regulations. \u201cThere are profiteers who are making money on basically the health of our children, and I object to that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump is expected to sign the funding patch, which the White House endorsed last month ahead of Senate passage<\/u><\/a> \u2014 even though it blocks the Office of Management and Budget from finalizing its controversial rule to overhaul the federal grantmaking approval process.<\/p>\n

That Senate-added language, as well as a prohibition on new funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, drove significant support from House Democrats.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis critically stops the OMB rule from proceeding forward that many of us have been pushing against,\u201d House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said Tuesday, cheering other \u201cincredibly helpful\u201d additions to the bare-bones stopgap House Republicans initially passed<\/u><\/a> earlier this summer.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Democrats also hope to regain control of the House and Senate in the November elections and increase their leverage in December negotiations on government funding for the rest of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the huge intervening event,\u201d House Appropriations Chair Tom Cole said this week about the election. \u201cAnd it will impact whatever comes after it, no matter what anybody thinks. So it’s not like we’ll go back and pick up exactly where we left off.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Oklahoma Republican traveled to Ukraine and other European countries last month with his counterpart across the aisle, top committee Democrat Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut.<\/p>\n

The two top appropriators are motivated to strike a year-end deal to fund federal agencies with updated budgets, Cole said, rather than clearing another short stopgap or resorting to a lengthy patch that keeps programs on autopilot through next September<\/p>\n

\u201cWe both are pretty adamant that we need to get these bills done before the end of the calendar year,\u201d Cole said, adding that he and DeLauro will be \u201cworking really hard once we know who the players are on the other side\u201d of Election Day.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House cleared a stopgap funding patch Tuesday to keep cash flowing to federal agencies until mid-December \u2014 preventing a government shutdown before Election Day and setting up two major policy battles at year\u2019s end. The 370-48 vote takes care of Speaker Mike Johnson\u2019s last must-pass bill before the midterms. But swift passage comes at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}