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Abolish the Debt Ceiling (Before House Republicans Use It to Crash the System)
The House of Representatives took what will likely be its last major vote before the November elections today, passing a stopgap funding bill that will keep the government funded through December 16. The bill, which the Senate passed yesterday, only kicks the can down the road a couple of months, but it means there will be no concern over a government shutdown until after the November elections.
On the face of it, this was a thoroughly mundane continuing resolution (as these bills are called). The only drama surrounding it had to do with Joe Manchin’s permitting-reform proposal, which would overhaul federal requirements for building large energy projects and which Manchin and Senate Dems had hoped to include in the bill, but which Manchin eventually withdrew after it became clear he didn’t have the votes. After that proposal was dropped, the resolution passed the Senate 72–20.
The House vote, though, was much closer — 230 to 201 — because the GOP leadership in the House aggressively pushed Republican members to vote against it. Now, voting against it was an easy vote for Republicans to take, since they knew Democrats were going to pass the bill, and that therefore opposing the bill would not lead to a government shutdown. But the fact that House Republicans were unwilling to support a…
