Reuters
The U.S. Capitol building. [Photo Credit: Reuters]
The House of Representatives will try to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history on Wednesday, with a vote on a stopgap funding package to restart disrupted food assistance, pay hundreds of thousands of federal workers and revive a hobbled air-traffic control system.
Republicans currently hold a narrow 219-213 majority in the House. But President Donald Trump’s support for the bill is expected to keep his party together in the face of vehement opposition from House Democrats, who are angry that a long standoff launched by their Senate colleagues failed to secure a deal to extend federal health insurance subsidies.
Eight Senate Democrats on Monday broke with party leadership to pass the funding package, which would extend funding through January 30, leaving the federal government on a path to keep adding about $1.8 trillion a year to its $38 trillion in debt.
House Democrats remain adamantly opposed, angered by the Senate deal that came less than a week after Democrats won high-profile elections in New Jersey, Virginia and New York City that many thought strengthened their odds of winning an extension of health insurance subsidies. While the deal sets up a December vote on those subsidies in the Senate, Johnson has made no such promise in the House.
If approved by the House, the funding package would have to be signed into law by Trump, who heralded Senate passage as “a very big victory” on Tuesday.
Stream the best of Fiji on VITI+. Anytime. Anywhere.
