House passes $15.25 billion hurricane aid package with short-term government funding, debt-ceiling increase
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The head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency says U.S. officials are preparing a massive response to Hurricane Irma, which is set to hit Florida as early as Saturday.
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WASHINGTON — The House on Friday passed a $15.25 billion hurricane relief package that also increases the nation’s debt limit and funds the federal government for the next three months.
The bill, which passed 316-90, now heads to President Trump’s desk for his signature. All House Democrats and a majority of Republicans who voted supported the bill, while 90 Republicans opposed it. The Senate passed the bill Thursday, 80-17.
The package is the result of a deal Trump struck on Wednesday with House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., against the wishes of his own party leaders, who pushed for a longer-term increase of the debt limit. Before the deal, House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., said that lumping multiple bills together on a short-term basis was “ridiculous.â€
But on Thursday, Ryan said Trump wanted a “bipartisan moment†as the country responds to hurricanes Harvey and Irma, now a Category 4 storm barreling toward Florida.
“We all thought we had more time obviously, to deal with the debt-limit issue, and that’s before the hurricanes hit,†Ryan said at a Thursday news conference. “When these hurricanes hit and we saw the new numbers coming in from FEMA, that changed the entire calculation. And so the president made a game call yesterday that he thought it was — is in our country’s interest to have a bipartisan support in a bipartisan package to deal with these ongoing hurricane disasters.â€
The package provides initial emergency funding to respond to the hurricanes. It also maintains government operations at current levels through Dec. 8 and extends the National Flood Insurance Program and debt ceiling to that date.Â
The federal government is running out of borrowing authority, which officials say must be increased to pay for existing obligations, including hurricane relief efforts.
Many conservative Republicans who would like to couple government spending with offsets elsewhere were frustrated that the bill did none of that. They also said the president and GOP leadership had allowed them to be put into an awkward position.Â
“It’s fair to say that I’m not a happy camper about this process — this is what most people in the country say is wrong with Washington,†Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, told reporters at the Capitol after the vote. “You tie something that is obviously something that we all support, which is helping people in distress in America … with something else that would be more difficult to pass as a stand-alone bill.â€
Barton was one of at least four Texas Republicans who voted against the bill. Reps. Jeb Hensarling, Sam Johnson and Mac Thornberry also voted against the package.
Thornberry, who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, expressed concern about the effects of a short-term spending bill on the military.
“The reason I am voting against this bill is that it forces our military to operate under a stopgap continuing resolution — once again,” Thornberry wrote in a letter to Ryan. He said he was happy to support a clean bill that provided aid to Harvey victims.Â
The House on Wednesday passed a $7.9 billion aid package 419-3. The Senate bill added $7.4 billion in Community Development Block Grant funding for areas most affected by 2017 disasters.
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Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., chairs the hardline Freedom Caucus and voted against the legislation, but on Friday he said he wasn’t surprised that there weren’t more “no†votes.
“People don’t want to be perceived as not being compassionate, and so I get that,†Meadows said.
The White House had sent Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Office of Management and Budget Director Mick Mulvaney to make their case to Republicans to back the bill Friday before the vote.
“He just didn’t hit it,” Rep. Dave Brat, a Freedom Caucus member from Virginia, said about Mnuchin’s pitch. “He came and said ‘I do get it, I understand where you’re at, I understand where you’re at on that.’ Well, then don’t jam us.”
“We got jammed on this, they coupled an emotionally charged issue of tragedy to a fiscal issue,” added Brat, who voted against the bill.
At the meeting, conservative members also needled Mulvaney, who was formerly a member of the Freedom Caucus, for backing a deal with Democrats rather than the conservative option that he would likely have supported when he was in the House.
Leaders of the influential Republican Study Committee, the largest House Republican caucus, had opposedthe Trump deal. The committee’s chairman, Rep. Mark Walker of North Carolina, voted against the deal and Thursday sent a letter to Ryan with 19 policy proposals — including a balanced budget amendment, a repeal of Obamacare and reforms to begin “draining the swamp†— to win conservative support for a package to raise the debt ceiling.
But some House Republicans were relieved that a deal had been struck and they had time to move onto other priorities — like tax reform.
“I actually think the president did the right thing. I think he bought the time to deal with these natural disasters and to finish tax reform and to put us in a position to negotiate a bipartisan, bicameral large spending bill,” said Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla.
Cole said he appealed to his colleagues to vote for the package.
His pitch: “Basically someday a disaster is going to happen (to your state) …  and so you need to keep that in mind.†Cole recounted his vote for aid for Hurricane Sandy in 2013 just months before Oklahoma was hit by tornadoes. “I would have been in a very terrible position politically had I voted against relief in the Northeast and then asked for relief in my area.”
“I’m not frustrated by the deal,” Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., told reporters. “The basic belief that the president has, is you don’t hold relief to victims hostage for anything meant that what he wanted was a win-win.”Â
Issa described Trump as not acting like a Republican but rather as an “arbitrating judge” who listened to both sides and then made the call.Â
Meanwhile, Democrats pounced on the Republicans who had voted against the bill.
“Vulnerable House Republicans’ vote against relief for American families still reeling from Hurricane Harvey would be reckless and cruel on its own, but the fact that it was also a vote for a government shutdown and defaulting on America’s debt gives new meaning to the word irresponsible,” said Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Tyler Law.
Contributing: Paul Singer
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Nancy Torres, of Miami, and her dog, Elliott, an 11-year-old puggle, are evacuating to Atlanta for Hurricane Irma and stopped to get medicine for the dog since he was bloated and nervous on Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 at Martin Downs Animal Hospital in Palm City, Fla.. “This only happens when there’s a storm coming,” said Elliott’s other owner and Torres’ boyfriend, Juan Melo. Â
Aut Smith, 42, and Willie Young, 52, load up sandbags for the community at the City of Gainesville Public Works Department, Wednesday, Sept. 6, 2017 in Gainesville, Fla. “We are happy to be here helping people,” said Young, who has been working for the city for 32 years. Â
Jackie Kreuter, 56, of Gulfport, Fla., tosses pool furniture in the pool so it doesn’t fly around during the impending hurricane. Kreuter, along with her mother, husband, sister, daughter, grandson, five dogs and a bird are boarding up their home and business and leaving for Ocala to get out of Hurricane Irma’s way. Â
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