Congress tied up in partisan knots over the most basic duty

Senate Democrats initially rejected the bill in a procedural vote on Tuesday. Many Republicans in the House of Representatives were vocally opposed to federal assistance in Flint, contending that the infrastructure problems were similar to those found in other aging USA cities.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said the breakthrough on Flint “will help unlock” the short-term government spending bill, which stalled in the Senate Tuesday over demands by Democrats that the measure include $220 million to help Flint and other cities deal with tainted water.

“I am convinced that there is going to be help for Flint in the lame duck”, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor.

“We have waited an very bad long time for this”, the congressman who represents Flint, Democrat Daniel Kildee, said on the House floor.

Republican leaders are promising to address the Flint issue after the election in a separate water resources bill, but Democrats refuse to take them at their word.

The Senate approved the bill early in the day by a vote of 72-26, while the House voted 342-85 to pass the measure. Seventy five Republicans and ten Democrats opposed the resolution.

Also Wednesday, Democrats joined with Republicans to hand Obama the first veto override of his presidency, voting overwhelmingly to allow families of September 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia in USA courts for its purported backing of the attackers.

But the White House backed the two-pronged approach to funding the government and providing Flint aid. The House voted 399-25 on Wednesday to approve its own bill, including an amendment by Rep. Dan Kildee, D-Mich., to provide $170 million for Flint. The emergency Flint funds will be provided in separate legislation, according to the agreement between Republicans and Democrats. A panel appointed by the MI governor found that the governor and state officials were primarily accountable for the water contamination, but that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should have intervened in the crisis sooner. Congress included $1.1 billion to combat the Zika virus as well as emergency funding for Louisiana and other areas hit by flooding, and the country’s opioid epidemic. They will work to pass 11 individual FY2017 appropriations bills, a series of “mini-buses that include some individual appropriations, or more likely an omnibus appropriations bill containing the 11 remaining appropriations bills”. The Wall Street Journal noted that the VA had been barred from covering the cost of in vitro fertilisation since the early 1990s.

The NDAA could also settle a dispute between the House and Senate over requiring women to register with the Selective Service and potentially be drafted into future military conflicts.

Mr Reid also objected to Mitch McConnell continuing a provision in current law that prohibits the Securities and Exchange Commission from requiring corporations to disclose their political spending.

The senator would not say Wednesday whether he would consider voting for any spending bill that does not stop the internet oversight transfer, but he has given no indication that he’s willing to risk a government shutdown over the issue.