US Congress passes bill to avert partial government shutdown

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi signs the bill. Pic/AFP

With only hours to spare, Congress passed legislation that would avoid a partial federal shutdown and keep the government funded through Dec. 3, and sent the bill to President Joe Biden.

The back-to-back votes by the Senate and then the House will help avert one crisis, but just delay another as the political parties dig in on a dispute over how to raise the government's borrowing cap before the United States risks a potentially catastrophic default.

The House approved the short-term funding measure by a 254-175 vote not long after Senate passage in a 65-35 vote. A large majority of Republicans voted against it. The legislation was needed to keep the government running once the current budget year ended at midnight Thursday. Passage will buy lawmakers more time to craft the spending measures that will fund federal agencies and the programs they administer.

Democrats struggled to get Biden's top domestic priorities over the finish line, including a bipartisan $1 trillion infrastructure bill at risk of stalling in the House. With their energy focused on Biden's agenda, Democrats backed down from a showdown over the debt limit in the government funding bill, deciding to uncouple the borrowing ceiling at the insistence of Republicans. If that cap is not raised by Oct. 18, the US probably will face a financial crisis and economic recession, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.

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