The package, which provides roughly $1.7 trillion to keep the government funded, also sets aside billions of dollars more for emergency aid, including over $40 billion for Ukraine, more than the $37.7 billion the White House requested. It also provides about $40 billion to help communities across the country recover from hurricanes, wildfires and droughts in the past year.
The legislation includes plans intended to improve the nation’s response to future pandemics, though lawmakers did not include a proposal to create an independent panel to investigate the handling of the coronavirus pandemic.
In their effort to secure at least 10 Republican votes to avoid a filibuster, Democrats were forced to abandon a number of priorities, including reviving lapsed expanded payments to most families with children, emergency aid to counter the toll of the coronavirus pandemic and a bid to lift the cap on the nation’s borrowing limit before an expected deadline next year.
Republicans — led by Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, and Richard C. Shelby of Alabama, the vice chairman of the Appropriations Committee — emphasized their success in negotiating more funding for the military, as some conservatives balked at the overall spending increase and lamented that they could have had a stronger negotiating hand had party leaders waited until they controlled the House.
“Republicans’ position all along was quite simple: defending America and outcompeting our rivals is a fundamental governing duty,” Mr. McConnell said on the Senate floor. “It’s the basic business that we’re supposed to take care of, not something for which Democrats get special rewards, and that is precisely what is finally happening.”
Democrats, who muscled through more than $2 trillion over unanimous Republican opposition earlier this congressional session, in turn spoke of their success in shoring up some health care, veterans assistance, housing and food programs and protecting other domestic funding priorities, even as they acknowledged that several of their initiatives had to be curtailed or left out.
“This funding bill is overflowing with very good news for our troops, for the Ukrainian brave fighters, for American jobs, for our families and for American democracy,” said Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the majority leader, in a speech on the Senate floor on Tuesday morning. He urged senators to take up the bill quickly in the coming days.
Emily Cochrane
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