Biden signs $1.7 trillion government funding package

President Biden on Thursday signed the sprawling $1.7 trillion spending package to fund the government into next fall, wrapping up a year of several bipartisan legislative accomplishments for the president.

The president signed the package in St. Croix, where he is spending the New Year’s holiday with his family. The White House received the bill from Congress late afternoon on Wednesday, according to the White House, and the bill was brought to the U.S. Virgin Islands on Thursday.

The House passed the measure on Dec. 23, one day after the Senate approved it with a large bipartisan majority, 68-29. The House passed it largely along party lines in a 225-201-1 vote.

Biden last week signed a stopgap measure that Congress had passed to keep the government open past an earlier Dec. 23 deadline. The short-term bill, which moved the deadline to Dec. 30, was intended to allow time for the more than 4,000-page omnibus to make its way to Biden’s desk for his signature.

The massive package includes $45 billion in military and economic aid for Ukraine and $38 billion for emergency disaster assistance. It also includes reforms to the Electoral Count Act in response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the U.S. Capitol, clarifying that the vice president does not have the power to unilaterally overturn the results of a presidential election.

Biden hailed those provisions and others in a statement following the passage last week. He noted the package also includes funding for cancer research, to hire more police officers and for the Violence Against Women Act. He further touted its funding for the PACT Act, which he signed into law in August to expand health benefits to veterans exposed to toxic substances.

The spending bill is one of several major bipartisan legislative wins in Biden’s first two years in office. Others include the $1 trillion infrastructure law, the bipartisan gun law and the CHIPS and Science Act.