House passes stopgap bill to avoid looming government shutdown

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last updated 7 February 2018

On Tuesday evening, the House passed a six-week stopgap bill that would fund the Pentagon at elevated levels for the rest of the fiscal year while keeping funding the same for non-defense programs.

The vote was mostly along party lines, at 245-182. It's likely this will fail in the Senate, where Democrats want full-year spending increases on domestic programs, not just the military. With another shutdown set to begin at midnight Thursday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) have been holding frequent budget talks, and McConnell said he thinks "we're on the way to getting an agreement and getting it very soon." Earlier in the day, President Trump said if Republicans can't get a budget deal that tightens immigration laws, he would "love to see a shutdown."

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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.