House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Sunday the lower chamber “did its job” in the government funding battle.
On Sept. 19, the House passed what Johnson called a “clean” and “nonpartisan” stopgap spending bill, which would fund the government through Nov. 21.
“The House did its job,” Johnson said on CBS’s "Face the Nation." “The reason that House Republicans are home working in their districts, and I suspect House Democrats should be as well, is because we did that.
“We passed a bipartisan, very clean continuing resolution a couple of weeks back now, and sent it to the Senate.”
The stopgap bill passed the House 217-212, with only one Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden (Maine), voting in favor. However, all but three members of the Senate Democratic Conference — Sens. John Fetterman (Pa.), Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.) and Angus King (Maine), an independent who caucuses with Democrats — voted against the proposal Tuesday. The Senate voted down the measure for a fourth time on Friday.
Republican Sen. Rand Paul (Ky.) also has voted against the GOP-backed bill.
All 53 Republicans proceeded to vote against a Democratic-backed proposal, which would fund the government through October, permanently extend subsidies offered via the Affordable Care Act and restor nearly $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts.
Johnson, blaming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), said that “real Americans are being harmed because of this political game.” Because of the government shutdown, federal employees are either working without pay or have been furloughed.
The House will remain out of session this week, while the Senate looks to come to an agreement to end the first shutdown since the 34-day halt across December 2018 and January 2019.
“It was a good-faith effort to keep the government open for seven more weeks so that Republicans and Democrats, in a bipartisan fashion, could work together to fund the government with the appropriations process,” Johnson said.
Source: The Hill - News
