The House passes a bill to avoid a government shutdown
Jessica Smith joins Brian Sozzi and Emily McCormick to break down The House bill that would help avoid a government shutdown on October 1 by funding the government and suspending the debt limit for a short-term and how Republican opposition in the Senate could lead to significant ramifications.
Video transcript
EMILY MCCORMICK: The US House of Representatives passed legislation yesterday to prevent a government shutdown and suspend the debt limit. The bill passed on a party-line vote and now heads to the Senate as Congress races to pass a funding plan by September 30 to ultimately avert a shutdown.
For more on the latest in DC, we have Yahoo Finance's political correspondent Jessica Smith with us now. And, Jess, this bill cleared one major hurdle in the House. What additional challenges should we expect as we continue to move forward with this legislation?
JESSICA SMITH: Well, it's now up to the Senate, as you mentioned, and Republicans are expected to block this bill later this week. And lawmakers are really running out of time to avoid what everyone seems to agree would be a catastrophic scenario as you have a government shutdown and a default looming.
The House did pass that bill that would avoid the shutdown. It was a party-line vote, 220 to 211. And this bill would keep the government funded through early December. It would suspend the debt limit until December of next year. And it also had more than $28 billion for disaster relief and more than $6 billion to support Afghan refugees.
Democrats need 10 Republicans in the Senate to vote with them in order to pass this bill, and so far I've just heard of one Senate Republican who has been open to voting yes. That's Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana. He had said that he might vote yes because of the disaster relief that would be included for his state.
But the rest of the party is really digging in. Republicans say they are not going to support this because Democrats are in control of Congress. They're in control of the White House, so they should do this on their own despite the fact that both parties have contributed to the debt over the years. And both Senate leaders discussed their points yesterday in press conferences. Let's watch.
CHUCK SCHUMER: Every member of our caucus from one end to the other is outraged at the irresponsible and dishonest Republican default plan. Simply put, Republicans are trying a dine and dash of historic proportion.
MITCH MCCONNELL: Obviously we're not involved in any bipartisan discussion regarding the reckless taxing-and-spending legislation. So the debt ceiling will be raised, as it always should be, but it will be raised by the Democrats.
JESSICA SMITH: Now, so what happens next is not exactly clear. If Republicans hold firm and they say they're not going to vote on this bill, we could see the Senate try and pass a bill that just deals with the shutdown. It just averts the shutdown. Republicans would get on board with that, but then that leaves Democrats figuring out what to do about the debt limit.
They could act on their own, but that takes time. Emily and Brian, there is clearly not much of it left.
EMILY MCCORMICK: Absolutely, Jess, and something we will all be watching very closely in the weeks and months ahead. But Yahoo Finance's Jessica Smith, thank you so much.
