McConnell: Kevin, We Ain't Shutting The Government Down!

Tension between the Republicans.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shuts the door on a government shutdown proposed by Republicans in the House. He and probably nine members of the Senate will pass the omnibus bill to keep the federal government open until September 2023.

The Minority Leader is not wasting time arguing with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), the embattled lawmaker who wants to Speaker of the House.

A group of 13 current and incoming House Republicans has threatened to oppose the legislative priorities next year of any senators who vote for the bill, including McConnell. 

And the next likely speaker of the House, McCarthy tweeted Tuesday that he agreed with them.

“When I’m Speaker, their bills will be dead on arrival in the House if this nearly $2T monstrosity is allowed to move forward over our objections and the will of the American people,” McCarthy tweeted.

McConnell said the GOP’s negotiations were successful in the end. He framed the longer-term spending bill as a victory for the GOP, even as many Republicans will undoubtedly vote against it. He said Republicans succeeded in increasing defense spending far beyond Biden’s request while scaling back some of the increase Biden wanted for domestic spending.

“We’ve transferred huge sums of money away from Democrats’ spending wish list toward our national defense and armed forces, but without allowing the overall cost of the package to go higher,” McConnell said.

Congressional leaders unveiled a government-wide $1.7 trillion spending package early Tuesday that includes another large round of aid to Ukraine, a nearly 10% boost in defense spending and roughly $40 billion in emergency spending, mostly to assist communities across the country recovering from drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters.

The bill, which runs for 4,155 pages, includes about $772.5 billion for non-defense, discretionary programs and $858 billion for defense and would last through the end of the fiscal year at the end of September.

Lawmakers worked to stuff as many priorities as they could into the sprawling package, likely the last major bill of the current Congress. They are racing to complete passage before a midnight Friday deadline or face the prospect of a partial government shutdown going into the Christmas holiday.

Lawmakers leading the negotiations released the details of the bill shortly before 2 a.m. Tuesday.

The spending package includes about $45 billion in emergency assistance to Ukraine. It would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine, above even President Joe Biden’s $37 billion emergency request, and ensure that funding flows to the war effort for months to come.