Senate passes government funding bill, sending it to the House to avoid a shutdown
NBCDec 24, 2022
The Facts
With a federal government shutdown deadline looming at midnight Friday, the Senate and House voted to pass a stopgap bill to fund the federal government through Dec. 16 and also provide more funding to Ukraine.
Senators were able to keep spending for federal agencies at current levels, as well as provide Ukraine with $12B for training, equipment and logistics support, humanitarian aid, and replenishment of US weapons and munitions, including $35M in nuclear preparedness funding.
The Spin
Pro-establishment narrative
With everything going on around the world and in the US, this bill saved a lot of Americans from the catastrophe of a government shutdown. With the help of Senate Republicans, Democrats have kept vital federal agencies open while boosting aid to victims of both natural disasters at home and of war abroad. In this case, the bipartisan collaboration worked.
Establishment-critical narrative
House Republicans were correct in voting against this bill, but to no avail, as the Senate GOP chose to side with the Democrats. Not only does this stopgap measure continue to fund anti-Republican institutions like the National Institutes of Health and World Health Organization, Mitch McConnel and his followers just voted to give Democrats more budgetary power ahead of the mid-terms. Unpopular initiatives were rammed through in the name of "bipartisan consensus."
