Congress averts government shutdown just three hours before deadline | US News

With just three hours to spare, Congress averted a government shutdown after agreeing on a bill to keep the government funded for another day.

At breakneck speed, the Senate voted 88-9 Saturday night to approve a deal that was brokered earlier in the day by the House of Representatives.

Nine Republicans voted against the bill in the upper chamber at 9.03pm local time, with President Joe Biden signing the agreement just before the 12.01am deadline.

The measure will keep the money flowing until November 17.

‘Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans,’ Biden said in a statement.

Addressing House Republicans who stalled the legislation, Biden added: ‘We should never have been in this position in the first place.’

Congress has the power of the purse, with lawmakers passing a budget every year across 12 so-called appropriations bills.

Except this didn’t happen. This means a stopgap measure had to be passed to temporarily fund federal agencies or else scores of government employees would be furloughed and basic government functions frozen in place.

Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, said: ‘The American people can breathe a sigh of relief: there will be no government shutdown.

‘After trying to take our government hostage, MAGA Republicans won nothing.’

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy announced the stopgap proposal Saturday morning.

The measure includes billions of dollars for disaster recovery efforts and to keep the doors of the Federal Aviation Administration open.

However, the bill did not include money for war-torn Ukraine even though the White House had requested it. (Republican support for adding funds to Kyiv’s war efforts against Russia has been weakening.)

‘We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,’ Biden added.

The House Democratic leadership said it hopes McCarthy will bring in a separate Ukraine aid legislation when the chamber is gaveled back tomorrow.

‘When the House returns, we expect Speaker McCarthy to advance a bill to the House Floor for an up-or-down vote that supports Ukraine, consistent with his commitment to making sure that Vladimir Putin, Russia and authoritarianism are defeated,’ they said.

‘We must stand with the Ukrainian people until victory is won.’

The House had passed the plan in an overwhelmingly bipartisan 335-91 vote only hours after McCarthy introduced it to the floor.

Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois, said he had his reasons to be the only Democrat not to vote for the measure.

‘This bill is a victory for Putin and Putin sympathizers everywhere,’ he said, adding: ‘We now have 45 days to correct this grave mistake.’

Republicans also raised their eyebrows at the bill. Many had told Democrats they’d only get their votes if they conceded to deep spending cuts and tougher immigration policies.

While a shutdown was averted following a day of twists and turns, McCarthy’s speakership may be on the line.

McCarthy had spent weeks shrugging off calls to work with the Democrats only to introduce a long-shot bid to pass a short-term spending bill, known as a continuing resolution, that would appeal to Democrats.

Hard-right Republicans on Friday shot down an earlier GOP stopgap bill, failing 232-198, with 21 Republicans joining all Democrats to vote against it.

The was, however, doomed from the start, being unlikely to have passed through the Democratic-controlled Senate.

Now hard-line conservatives in the narrowly Republican-controlled House are widely expected to plough a vote to kick out McCarthy, a California Republican.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@metro.co.uk.

For more stories like this, check our news page.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.