(PresidentialWire.com)- Last Thursday, Congress passed a stop-gap spending bill to keep the government funded through early December, thereby warding off a shutdown of the federal government. At least for now.
The bill went immediately to President Biden who signed it.
In addition to the continuing resolution to fund the government through December 3, the bill also tacked on $28.6 billion in additional relief spending as well as $6.3 billion for Afghan refugee settlement. These additional spending items were added at the request of the White House.
In a statement after signing the bill, President Biden said the added spending lumped in was to meet “critical and urgent needs of the nation.” It’s difficult to grasp why slipping in billions to resettle these Afghan “refugees” would be critical to the nation.
Boasting that there is “so much more to do,” Biden urged Congress to work in a bipartisan fashion to spend even more money.
They should’ve just let it shut down. After all, the government shut the country down for months. Turnabout is fair play.
But for some reason, even Republicans can’t stand the thought of a government shutdown. Fifteen Republican Senators and thirty-seven Republican House members voted in favor of this stop-gap spending bill.
This simply kicks the can down the road for two months. Then Congress will have to play this game all over again in order avoid a government shutdown on December 3.
In the meantime, the debt ceiling fight is now underway.
Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi warning that Congress must either raise or suspend the debt limit by October 18 in order to avoid near-certain economic disaster.
Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee last Tuesday, that it is imperative that Congress act “swiftly” otherwise the United States would “default for the first time in history” and the “full faith and credit” of the US would be “impaired.” Yellen warned that the country would likely face a financial crisis and economic recession if the debt ceiling remained where it is.
Initially, Democrats attempted to slip in the suspension of the debt ceiling into the stop-gap spending bill, but Senate Republicans blocked the measure, forcing Democrats to remove it from the final bill.
