House Democrats Introduce Spending Bill to Fund Government Through Dec. 11 -- 2nd Update
22 September 2020 - 3:43AM
Dow Jones News
By Kristina Peterson
WASHINGTON -- House Democrats released Monday a spending bill
that would keep the government running through Dec. 11, but without
farm-aid funds sought by the White House.
The bill could set up a clash with the GOP-controlled Senate, as
partisan tension is running high after Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell (R., Ky.) said he would move to swiftly fill the Supreme
Court vacancy created by the death Friday of Supreme Court Justice
Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The government's current funding expires at
12:01 a.m. Oct. 1.
"The Continuing Resolution introduced today will avert a
catastrophic shutdown in the middle of the ongoing pandemic,
wildfires and hurricanes, and keep government open until Dec. 11,
when we plan to have bipartisan legislation to fund the government
for this fiscal year," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) said
Monday.
The absence of the farm aid, which typically enjoys bipartisan
support, was expected to become a flashpoint in the GOP-controlled
Senate. One possibility is that the Senate adds the farm aid onto
the spending bill before sending the legislation back to the House,
aides said. But such back-and-forth negotiations risk bringing
Congress to the brink of a partial government shutdown if the
dispute isn't resolved by next Thursday.
Last week, President Trump had criticized Democrats for pushing
back on the farm aid in negotiations over the spending bill.
"Pelosi wants to take 30 Billion Dollars away from our great
Farmers. Can't let that happen!" Mr. Trump said on Twitter.
The bill introduced by House Democrats on Monday excluded the
$21 billion the White House requested for the Agriculture
Department's Commodity Credit Corp., or CCC, a Depression-era
program designed to stabilize farm incomes. It permits borrowing as
much as $30 billion from the Treasury to finance its
activities.
Democrats said they had concerns over replenishing a program if
that meant giving President Trump a blank check to use for
political purposes after he announced more aid for farmers at a
campaign rally in Wisconsin last week.
The CCC program helped finance the first round of
coronavirus-related aid to farmers, although Congress included some
funding to reimburse it in previous relief legislation passed in
March. But aides said its resources were already being depleted
even before Mr. Trump announced a second round of $13 billion in
farm aid at Thursday night's rally.
Funding that second round could impede the program's ability to
send out noncontroversial commodity support and conservation
programs established by the farm bill, aides said. Once early
October payments have been sent, the CCC program could be exhausted
by November, the Farm Bureau estimated last week.
The House spending bill also left out an extension sought by
Democrats of a program known as Pandemic-EBT. The program provides
families of school-age children benefits to use to buy groceries,
replacing the free or reduced-price meals they would have received
at school. The Covid-relief program, which Congress authorized in
March, is set to expire Sept. 30.
A bipartisan group of lawmakers had hoped to give the U.S.
Census Bureau extra time to finish its count of the U.S. population
and deliver that information to the president and Congress, but the
spending bill didn't provide an extension.
Write to Kristina Peterson at kristina.peterson@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 21, 2020 13:28 ET (17:28 GMT)
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