WASHINGTON — The House of Representatives voted largely along party lines Friday to pass a $1.7 trillion omnibus bill less than 11 hours before a partial government shutdown would have begun — enraging GOP lawmakers who wanted to wait until they control the chamber next month and have more power over long-term spending.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who is campaigning to become the next speaker on Jan. 3, blasted the measure as “4,000 [pages] of pet projects, pork, and progressive priorities” and “a monstrosity that is one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in this body.”
“The Senate didn’t pass one appropriations bill, not one, so people could read it or have debate,” McCarthy said before addressing the Democrats.
“The country is tired of it,” he said, adding: “They fired you. They chose a new direction for our country by electing a House Republican majority for the 118th Congress. If you dearly cared about the people, why wouldn’t you let everybody read it? Why wouldn’t you let them debate it? Why wouldn’t you simply wait 11 days? Just wait 11 days. The people have spoken.”
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) blasted the report as “a monstrosity that is one of the most shameful acts I’ve ever seen in this body.” C-SPANThe California Republican then assailed the bill for spending too much and doing too little to curb illegal immigration and the flow of fentanyl across the US-Mexico border.
“We now have caught enough fentanyl in the last year to kill every single American,” he said. “It’s in every single one of your cities. If you listen to the people, if you stop playing politics, they’ll tell you to stop it … What does this [bill] do to stop it? Nothing.”
“This bill funds — and you should brag about this — 300 additional Border Patrol agents,” McCarthy added. “But as you brag about that, there’ll be 3,000 illegal border crossings in one single day, just in El Paso.”
As McCarthy sat down, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) waited to be recognized, rolling his eyes as the Republicans in attendance applauded their leader’s speech.
After the clapping died away, McGovern snarked: “After listening to that, it’s clear he doesn’t have the votes yet,” referring to McCarthy’s speaker bid, before sitting back down.
Moments later, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in her last floor speech as the chamber’s Democratic leader, rebuked her rival for his “shameful” characterization of the bill, asking: “I can’t help but wonder, has he forgotten January 6?”
“This is a day of immense patriotism as we reformed the Electoral [Count] Act of 1887 to thwart future attempts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power,” she added, referring to elements of the bill that make it harder to contest presidential election results.
The bill was passed just hours before a partial shutdown would have begun Friday night. C-SPANThe 225-201 vote came too late for President Biden to sign the bill into law before the 11:59 p.m. deadline.
To ensure operations would continue as normal, the House and Senate also approved a one-week measure to keep current government funding levels in place through Dec. 30 — long enough for the post-vote administrative process to be completed and for Biden to sign the measure early next week.
“The bipartisan funding bill advances key priorities for our country and caps off a year of historic bipartisan progress for the American people,” the president said in a statement shortly before signing the short-term bill Friday afternoon.
“Neither side got everything it wanted in this agreement – that’s what happens in a negotiation,” Biden added. “… This bill is further proof that Republicans and Democrats can come together to deliver for the American people, and I’m looking forward to continued bipartisan progress in the year ahead.”
Nine Republicans voted in favor of the spending bill — seven of whom are retiring from Congress after this term. Bronx and Queens Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was the only Democrat to vote “no.” AOC’s fellow “Squad” member Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) voted “present.”
“I campaigned on a promise to my constituents: to oppose additional expansion and funding for ICE and DHS — particularly in the absence of long-overdue immigration reform,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a statement. “For that reason, as well as the dramatic increase in defense spending which exceeds even President Biden’s request, I voted no on today’s omnibus bill.”
The House took up the omnibus after the Senate passed the bill Thursday afternoon 68-29.
The spending package includes $858 billion to fund the Defense Department, leaving about $772.5 billion for non-defense, so-called “discretionary” programs. Biden signed the military spending bill — which repeals his administration’s own COVID-19 vaccine mandate for service members — Friday morning.
“I rise in strong bipartisan support for this bipartisan, omnibus government funding bill for us today to keep from shutting the government down,” Nancy Pelosi said. C-SPAN
McCarthy is favored to become the next speaker on Jan. 3. APTop-line domestic spending items in the 4,155-page bill include $118.7 billion for the Veterans Administration, $40.6 billion to help communities recover from natural disasters, and $39 billion for the Justice Department.
It also included $44.9 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine and NATO allies, passing two days after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed a joint meeting of Congress to push for more aid.
In addition to its spending, the legislation clarifies that the vice president has a purely ceremonial role in the certification of electoral votes and raises the threshold to trigger House and Senate votes on whether to overturn or discard a state’s presidential election results from one member of each chamber to one-fifth of each chamber — an attempt to repeat a rerun of last year’s Capitol riot.
By the time the vote came about, scores of legislators had left DC for the Christmas recess as a massive winter storm affected travel across the country. In total, more than 226 representatives voted on the bill by proxy.






