The White House on Tuesday sent Congress an "urgent" request for tens of billions in emergency funding for Afghan resettlement and relief for flooding, droughts, hurricane damage, wildfires, and other natural disasters that have directly affected a third of U.S. counties this summer. The funds — $14 billion for natural disasters that hit before Hurricane Ida, about $10 billion of Ida relief, and $6.4 billion for helping Afghan allies settle in the U.S. — would be added to a stopgap spending bill that needs to be passed before Oct. 1 to avert a partial government shutdown.
Democrats are discussing raising the debt limit in the stopgap continuing resolution, too, fixing another one of the vexing issues facing Congress in a busy legislative September. The House also needs to pass a roughly $1 trillion infrastructure package that has bipartisan support, and Democrats in both chambers hope to negotiate and pass a broad social and climate policy bill worth up to $3.5 trillion.
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