Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said that lawmakers could potentially pass a massive $1.7 trillion government funding package as early as Wednesday to avert a possible shutdown.
Referring to a procedural vote to kickstart the process in the upper chamber on Tuesday, Schumer said that the Senate took the first step in passing the bill with a vote of 75 to 20 to begin to debate.
Government Funding Package
On Wednesday, the Democrat called the margin "a strong signal that both sides are keen to finish funding the government very soon." On Monday morning, Schumer said that they needed to finish their work before the Friday deadline but noted that he was hoping they could vote on the final passage much sooner.
The House and Senate are both preparing for an address to a joint session of Congress scheduled for Wednesday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The funding would include $45 billion in aid for the European country fighting against Russia's aggressive invasion, as per The Hill.
The Senate majority leader added that both sides were still negotiating potential amendments and noted that he was hopeful senators could start voting for them later in the day. He urged his colleagues to not stand in the way of moving the process forward.
The Friday midnight deadline was set by a short-term measure that lawmakers passed last week in an attempt to allow more time for funding negotiations. On Tuesday, congressional negotiators revealed the omnibus funding package, which will fund the U.S. government and its various agencies through the remainder of fiscal 2023, which will end in late September.
According to Reuters, despite the overwhelming bipartisan support for the funding package, a handful of Republican lawmakers objected to the bill. Sen. Mike Lee said that under no circumstances were they going to over the shutdown deadline.
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Avert a Government Shutdown
He joined a news conference with four allies to speak out against the measure's passage. Fellow Republican Sen. Mike Braun added that the group will intensify its budget reform efforts next year at a time when the GOP has control of the House of Representatives.
The recently-passed bill includes other measures that negotiators from both parties agree upon, including a ban on the use of TikTok on government-owned devices and clarification of Congress' role in certifying elections, which is an attempt to prevent a repeat of the unprecedented Capitol Hill riot on Jan. 6, 2021.
Leaders from the House and Senate are planning to pass the 4,155-page bill and quickly send it to United States President Joe Biden's desk for signature by the end of the week. The vote on Tuesday was the first in a series of steps that paved the way for passage of the bill by Friday.
The $1.7 billion funding package is divided into $858 billion for military spending and more than $772 billion for domestic programs. Despite the size of the measure, it was still less than what Democrats were looking for and more than what several conservative Republicans said they could tolerate, the New York Times reported.
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