Senate Puts House Bill Aiding Israel with IRS Cuts on Hold

The Senate tabled a motion to proceed on a House bill that would have given Israel $14.3 billion in emergency aid, paid for by cuts to the Internal Revenue Service’s budget.

Seen as a provocative push from the House GOP, the measure failed in the upper chamber 51 to 48, The Hill noted.

However, it only came after an intense back-and-forth on the Senate floor between Democrats and Republicans.

A group of Senate Republicans, including Roger Marshall of Kansas, Ted Cruz of Texas, and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, pushed to end a quorum call earlier in the day to move to the bill.

“The quorum call is right now just freezing the floor of the Senate,” Cruz said on the floor. “My assumption is that [Sen.] Chuck Schumer [N.Y.] and Democratic leadership is in their office panicking and trying to figure out what to do next. Their objective is to prevent a vote.”

Democrat Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, initially led the charge in shooting down the group’s requests before finally calling for a vote.

It came after the Republican group garnered 16 signatures on a cloture petition to end the debate.

Still, the legislation narrowly failed along party lines, even after garnering some Democratic support in the House.

The legislation was aimed to challenge Democrats intent on including aid to Ukraine and Israel in the same bill – a proposition that only some Republicans support, but an increasing number do not.

Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, argued lawmakers did not have to agree on Ukraine aid to push the Israel package on its own, the New York Post reported Tuesday.

“What I find interesting about the folks who are here today is they represent a cross-section of opinion on the Ukraine question,” Vance said Tuesday, noting his slight disagreements with several senators.

“As much as we agree, we don’t agree on every single permutation of how we address the Ukraine situation,” he continued. “What we do all agree on, though, is that the American people deserve a separate debate.”