The US Senate passed a funding bill in a rare show of bipartisan unity to avert the shutdown of several key federal agencies until September and thus avert partial government paralysis. The Senate had missed Friday’s midnight deadline to vote on the bill, but voted in the early hours of Saturday to approve the resolution that had already received the green light from the House.
The majority leader in the US Senate, Democrat Chuck Schumer, announced shortly before midnight local time, around 5 this morning Italian time, the reaching of an agreement to approve a 1.2 trillion dollar spending package and avoid the shutdown. “It’s been a very long and difficult day, but we just reached an agreement to finish the government’s funding work,” Schumer said. «It is good for the country to have reached this bipartisan agreement. It wasn’t easy, but tonight our perseverance was worth it,” he added. A couple of hours later the Senate approved the 1.2 trillion dollar package and the government financing bill now goes to US President Joe Biden for signature. The text was approved with 74 votes in favor and 24 against.
Funding for government agencies expired at midnight, but the White House sent out a notice shortly after the deadline announcing that the Office of Management and Budget had halted preparations for the shutdown because there was a high degree of confidence in that Congress would pass the law and President Biden would sign it on Saturday. The prospects of a short-term government shutdown appeared to increase Friday evening, after Republicans and Democrats clashed over proposed amendments to the bill. Any amendment approved in the Senate would have sent the bill back to the House, which had already begun a two-week recess.
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2024-03-23 10:12:10