Friday 9 February 2018

Congressmen hunker down with pizza as government shuts down for the second time in three weeks

What a real pizza work.

Congressmen hunker down with pizza as government shuts down for the second time in three weeks

Aides hauled several boxes of pizza to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office before the second government shutdown in three weeks officially kicked off at midnight.

GOP Sen. Rand Paul protested the budget deal on Thursday night and held up the vote, warning the bill would only add to the country’s debt, which already tops $20 trillion.

“I ran for office because I was very critical of President Obama’s trillion-dollar deficits,” the Kentucky senator said.

“Now we have Republicans hand in hand with Democrats offering us trillion-dollar deficits. I can’t in all honesty look the other way.”


Congress ends short-lived second shutdown of 2018 funds government for six weeks

The Senate is expected to approve the budget with a vote around 1 a.m., although the situation in the House remains dicey.

The measure, which contains roughly $400 billion in new spending for the Pentagon, domestic agencies, disaster relief and extending a host of health care provisions, does not address "Dreamers" who face deportation when their protections expire next month.

House Democratic leaders voiced their opposition, although Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California made it plain that she wasn’t pressuring fellow Democrats to kill the bill, which is packed with money for party priorities like infrastructure, combating opioid abuse and help for college students.

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Still, it represented a bitter defeat for Democrats who followed a risky strategy to use the party’s leverage on the budget to address immigration and ended up scalded by last month’s three-day government shutdown.

Despite the failure on immigration, the deal contains far more money demanded by Democrats than had seemed possible only weeks ago.

“We’re not going to get DACA as part of this,” said Rep. John Yarmuth of Kentucky, the top Democrat on the Budget Committee. “So if we can negotiate a deal like I think we’ve gotten that essentially meets every other one of our priorities then I think that’s where a lot of the Democrats are.”


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House GOP leaders said they were confident they had shored up support among conservatives for the measure, which would shower the Pentagon with money but add hundreds of billions of dollars to country’s deficit.

Republicans were sheepish about the bushels of dollars for Democratic priorities and the return next year of $1 trillion-plus deficits. But they pointed to money they have long sought for the Pentagon, which they say needs huge sums for readiness, training and weapons modernization.

“It provides what the Pentagon needs to restore our military’s edge for years to come,” said Ryan.

The Trump administration, which favored approval of the broad budget measure, was preparing for a “lapse” in appropriations, an official with the Office of Management and Budget said, commenting only on condition of anonymity.

If the deal passes in the House, the government will reopen in the morning without creating a disruption for thousands of federal employees.

The deal would fund the government for another six weeks, allowing lawmakers more time to come up with a spending bill that lasts until Sept. 30.
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