Senate approves short-term government funding bill to avert shutdown

The Senate on Tuesday voted in favor of a short-term spending package to avert a government shutdown.

The measure would fund the government until Nov. 17 and effectively punt the debate over a litany of supplemental funding bills until then.

Upper chamber lawmakers voted overwhelmingly to approve the bill by a 77 to 19 margin, The Hill reported. It is almost certainly dead on arrival in the Republican-led House of Representatives, which has struggled to produce its own proposals amid internal divisions in the GOP conference.

Complicating matters is an internal split about continued funding for Ukraine to help it stave off the Russian invasion and a conservative desire for broader spending cuts on the whole. The Senate plan includes $6.15 billion for Ukraine and another $5.99 billion in disaster relief. 

Last week, House Republican leadership sent lawmakers home on Thursday after conservative lawmakers unexpected torpedoed a procedural vote on a defense spending package, effectively blocking the entire legislative agenda.

Some lawmakers had previously blocked the package's advance earlier that week, though leadership had been confident of passage on the Thursday vote. Georgia Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene broke ranks in the second vote over the inclusion of Ukraine funding.

"I do not want another Korea, I don't want another Vietnam, another Iraq, another Afghanistan War, where we spend trillions of dollars and we watch coffins come home draped with flags," she told Just the News last week.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.