The Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who will be retiring next month, waved as she took a ride outside the Capitol Hill in Washington on the 23rd after the House of Representatives passed the spending bill.

(European News Agency)

[Compiled by Zhang Peiyuan/Comprehensive Report] On the 23rd, the U.S. House of Representatives rushed to the eve of the midnight deadline and passed a scale of one.

The US$7 trillion (approximately NT$30.76 trillion) annual spending bill, which includes record-breaking military funding and about US$45 billion in emergency aid for Ukraine; since the Senate passed a similar bill earlier, the bill will Sent to President Biden for signature.

Biden praised the passage of the bill as proof that the Democratic and Republican parties can work together, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited the United States a few days ago, expressed his gratitude for this.

The content of the bill includes providing the Department of Defense with a record-breaking $858 billion, an increase of more than $100 billion, or about 10%, from last year's $740 billion; domestic spending on a series of non-military programs of $77.25 billion US dollars, an increase of 6%; other major expenditures include 27 billion US dollars for relief of natural disaster victims, assistance to drug addicts, and large-scale infrastructure projects.

In addition, the bill also mentions that based on national security concerns, the use of Chinese TikTok on federal government devices is prohibited.

Please read on...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed his gratitude to the U.S. Congress and the Democratic and Republican parties through Twitter, saying that it is important for the United States to stand with Ukraine in this difficult time.

Among the 45 billion U.S. dollars in aid to Ukraine, more than 27 billion U.S. dollars are military funds, which will be used to arm the Ukrainian army and NATO allied forces; another 17 billion U.S. dollars will be used to help stabilize and recover the Ukrainian economy, and provide humanitarian aid.

Only nine Republicans defect in House of Representatives

The House of Representatives passed the spending bill by a vote of 225 to 201. The number of votes is roughly equal to the number of seats held by the Democratic and Republican parties in the House of Representatives. Only 9 of the 213 House Republicans One voted against the bill, while one Democrat voted against it.

Since the Democrats are no longer the majority party in the new House of Representatives early next year, the bill is like a last-ditch effort by the House of Representatives, which has passed multiple bills in the past two years to support the Biden administration, and the outgoing Speaker of the House of Representatives Pelosi.

Biden praised this result and said that the two parties can work together, and he looks forward to more cooperation between the two parties in the new year.

But McCarthy, the leader of the Republican House of Representatives who is expected to serve as the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the new Congress, may not let Biden do what he wants in terms of bipartisan cooperation.

McCarthy strongly opposed the bill, and denounced it as huge, ugly and shameless; but Democratic Congressman McGowan responded that McCarthy did not have enough votes, and whether he could really be the new Speaker of the House of Representatives is still a problem; Pelosi, who is the speaker of the House, also said, did McCarthy forget that the mob attacked Capitol Hill on January 6 last year?

One of the contents of the spending bill includes amending the centuries-old "Electoral Vote Counting Act." Former President Trump used this law to ask then Vice President Pence not to certify that Biden was elected, but Pence refused. Trump Therefore, supporters were encouraged to go to Congress, and a large number of mobs rushed into Capitol Hill to riot.