“It’s time for our friends to start worrying less about pleasing outside political groups and start worrying more about actually helping the Americans who are counting on us”, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, said. But a continuing impasse over the Pentagon budget sent McConnell’s effort to revive the process for advancing annual spending bills off the rails.
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Congress is expected to adjourn Friday for a seven-week recess through Labor Day and there was little evidence Tuesday that any bipartisan agreement would arrive before week’s end.
For months prior to Senate Democrats voting down their own priority, the Obama Administration stressed the dire threat Zika poses to the United States.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday rejected a new Democratic proposal aimed at finding a middle ground in the battle over Zika funding, increasing the chances that Congress will leave Washington for the summer without acting on a measure to stem the spread of the mosquito-borne illness.
Republicans howled in outrage at the twin Democratic filibusters.
“Our service members are at war”. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa. “I think our colleagues across the aisle have forgotten that”. Predictably, Democrats and Republicans are divided on whom, exactly, comes off with the worse image following the protracted debate, with the former deriding Republican leadership for being unable to pass a public health funding bill and the latter lambasting Democrats for playing partisan politics.
“It’s going to take that much longer to prove that the vaccine works”, said Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, who says testing next January on a promising vaccine faces delays. Cory Booker, D-N.J.
In response to last month’s mass killings in Orlando, House Republicans crafted a counterterrorism package that included a National Rifle Association-backed provision to prevent suspected terrorists from purchasing firearms.
The warning came in a letter from White House budget chief Shaun Donovan and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell and says that failure by Congress to pass anti-Zika funds before exiting Washington for its extended summer recess would “significantly impede the administration’s ability to prepare for and respond” to the Zika threat this summer and beyond. Protests from GOP conservatives have forced Ryan, R-Wis., to shelve a less stringent version.
“They want to go listen to Donald Trump”, Reid said. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. “Stop stonewalling the nation on gun safety reform”.
In response, Republicans cited recently-enacted legislation to help Puerto Rico through its fiscal crisis, a bipartisan measure to combat opioids, aviation safety legislation and legislation requiring labels on foods containing genetically modified ingredients. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) said during a Wednesday hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere and Global Narcotics Affairs.
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In the House, Republicans rammed through a $32 billion spending bill for the Interior Department and the Environmental Protection Agency – laced with provisions to roll back Obama administration regulations on matters like coal-fired power plants – on a partisan 231-196 vote. The House Interior measure would be just the fifth of the 12 spending measures to clear the House. Prior to the June vote, Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) warned Democrats that there would be no negotiations on a new Zika bill.
