Pictured from left, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) listen as Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) talks about Harvey relief efforts after a meeting with House Republicans on Sept. 6 on Capitol Hill. | Jacquelyn Martin/AP House sends Harvey aid package to Trump with debt ceiling boost

The House easily cleared a package Friday to provide more than $15 billion in disaster aid for victims of Hurricane Harvey, raise the debt ceiling and fund the government for three months.

President Donald Trump is expected to swiftly sign the bill, which delivered on the fiscal deal he struck with Democrats earlier this week. The House passed the legislation 316-90, a day after the Senate passed it, 80-17.


The measure takes care of most of Congress’ must-pass items this month, with extensions still needed by Sept. 30 for the Children’s Health Insurance Program and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Trump administration officials have said the president wanted to clear the legislative decks to ensure tax reform remains the policy focus this fall.

But House Republicans, who have derided the strategy since the president first settled on it, continued to condemn Trump’s move as they headed to vote Friday morning on the package many felt forced to support.

Punting on the debt limit until Dec. 8, Republican lawmakers argue, will give Democrats the upper hand, since the GOP likely will have to bargain with the minority party for votes to continue government funding — now set to expire on the very same day.

“There’s a lot of sentiment that the president’s decision empowers Democrats in December to withhold support for a further debt extension and a funding bill, that it emboldens them and it empowers them to make our job much more difficult in December," Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) said. "It empowers the Democrats to bargain, when they really had no bargaining position the way we were headed.”

Many Republicans expressed disappointment that House leaders and Trump administration officials didn’t entertain debate on cutting spending along with raising the debt ceiling.

In a House GOP meeting Friday morning with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House budget director Mick Mulvaney, several Republicans pressed the Cabinet officials to commit to a strategy for handling deficit spending the next time Congress must vote to raise the debt limit, according to lawmakers who attended the meeting.

“Show us a plan,” Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.) said he told Mnuchin. “We can’t just keep borrowing money. We’re going to be $22 trillion in debt.”

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Several House Republicans said they were told Friday morning that the Federal Emergency Management Agency could run out of disaster relief funding by day’s end.

While the bill would infuse that account with $7.4 billion, that money could run dry in as little as a few weeks, especially if Hurricane Irma lives up to the destructive potential predicted of the storm set to hit Florida by Saturday.

Lawmakers whose districts lie in the new hurricane’s potential path, and who also opposed the final aid vote Friday, are already beginning to defend their opposition.

“I voted for Harvey funding earlier in the week. It’s this mess, where they combine all this, that bothers me,” said Duncan, who represents the northwestern portion of South Carolina, bordering Georgia. “And if next week South Carolina or Georgia or Florida comes back because of the hurricane, I’ll vote for pure disaster relief funding then, just like I did this week.”