House Democrats Expected to Release Spending Bill Monday -- Update

By Kristina Peterson

WASHINGTON -- House Democrats are expected to release later Monday a spending bill keeping the government running through Dec. 11, but without farm-aid funds sought by the White House, according to a House Democratic aide.

The bill could set up a clash with the GOP-controlled Senate, as partisan tension is running high after Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said he would move to swiftly fill the Supreme Court vacancy created by the death Friday of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The government's current funding expires at 12:01 a.m. Oct. 1.

The bill House Democrats plan to introduce Monday is expected to exclude high-priority requests from each party, aides said, including the $21 billion the White House requested for the Agriculture Department's Commodity Credit Corp., or CCC, a Depression-era program designed to stabilize farm incomes. It permits borrowing as much as $30 billion from the Treasury to finance its activities.

Democrats said they had concerns over replenishing a program if that meant giving President Trump a blank check to use for political purposes after he announced more aid for farmers at a campaign rally in Wisconsin last week.

The CCC program helped finance the first round of coronavirus-related aid to farmers, although Congress included some funding to reimburse it in previous relief legislation passed in March. But aides said its resources were already being depleted even before Mr. Trump announced a second round of $13 billion in farm aid at Thursday night's rally.

Funding that second round could impede the program's ability to send out noncontroversial commodity support and conservation programs established by the farm bill, aides said. Once early October payments have been sent, the CCC program could be exhausted by November, the Farm Bureau estimated last week.

The House spending bill is also expected to exclude an extension sought by Democrats of a program known as Pandemic-EBT. The program provides families of school-age children benefits to use to buy groceries, replacing the free or reduced-price meals they would have received at school. The Covid-relief program, which Congress authorized in March, is set to expire Sept. 30.

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