The American Senate appears to be on track to pass the $1.7 trillion funding bill and avert a federal shutdown. The bill includes $45 billion in military and economic aid to Ukraine after lawmakers finally agreed on a final series of votes. The majority leader in the Senate, Democrat Chuck Schumer announced the agreement to consider 15 amendments before the final phase of voting gets underway.
Chuck Schumer announced that most of the passages would be subject to a threshold of 60 votes to move through. This would generally doom them to failure in a Senate split right down the middle.
Schumer revealed that it took a while for the agreement to fall into place but the effort was worth it. He hopes to get the bill to the President’s desk before the Christmas holidays. The bill will come up before the House after the Senate does its work on the bill.
Chuck Schumer Is In A Hurry To Get The Bill Through Before The Republicans Take Over The Senate In January
Included in the massive bill is $858 billion for defense-related expenses, plus another $772.5 billion for non-defense issues. Lawmakers are in a hurry to get it approved and passed and want to get it through before the winter sets in. many lawmakers want to ensure the funding before the Republicans take over in January and make it tougher to ensure a smooth passage for the bill.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy spoke before President Biden, Chuck Schumer, and other Congress leaders about the importance of American support for the war effort.
Zelencskyy stressed that the money that the west is giving the Ukrainians was not a charity and was an investment in ensuring democracy and global security. He assured that Ukraine was spending it most responsibly.
Chuck Schumer said that the worst thing that America could do at this moment was given a signal to the Russians and President Putin that America was wavering in its stance about the war in Europe.
