(The Center Square) – Two Republicans and one Democrat in Congress from Wisconsin broke from party lines in the votes for the $1.2 trillion spending bill given to taxpayers as law early Saturday.
Rep. Gwen Moore was one of the 22 Democrats in the House of Representatives on Friday casting a vote against the spending plan. Republican Reps. Mike Gallagher and Derrick Van Orden cast votes for the measure that comes nearly six months into the fiscal year.
President Joe Biden signed the second government funding mechanism into law before the sun rose. The Senate approved 74-24 a 1,012-page spending plan that was released about 48 hours earlier (that’s 21 pages an hour with no sleep, if reading it all).
“I am deeply concerned that we acquiesced too much in our efforts to keep the government fully open,” Moore said in a release. “Unfortunately, Republicans were able to add some of their poison pills, including their harmful cuts to the IRS, continuing their aggressive misinformation campaign and their decades long sabotage of the IRS, attacking the pride flag, and on immigration funding.”
House passage on Friday was 286-134.
In the Senate, Democrats were 47 yea, one nay; Republicans 25 yea, 22 nay; independents two yea, one nay. Two Republicans didn’t vote.
In the House, Democrats were 185 yea, 22 nay; Republicans 101 yea, 112 nay. Six Democrats and six Republicans didn’t vote.
The spending package is central to federal operations involving defense; financial services and general government; homeland security; labor, health, human services, education and some other related agencies; the Legislative Branch; and state, foreign operations and some programs related to them.
The votes for the measure, in addition to Gallagher and Van Orden, included Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin and Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan. Against it, in addition to Moore, were Republican Sen. Ronald Harold Johnson and Republican Reps. Scott Fitzgerald, Glenn Grothman, Bryan Steil and Tom Tiffany.
Of note, many senators said out loud that House members immediately leaving town after their vote for the two-week Easter vacation left them no choice but to pass what was in front of them with no amendments. Any amendments needing return to the House would have started the shutdown.
The first part of the nation’s funding through Sept. 30 was signed into law March 9. Total spending for the budget year that ends Sept. 30 is about $1.66 trillion, a figure that is referred to as "discretionary" and does not include Social Security and Medicare among other programs.
