Biden signs government funding bill, avoids partial shutdown

2024-12-21 19:20:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

Biden signs government funding bill, avoids partial shutdown

President Joe Biden

President Joe Biden signed legislation that averted a partial government shutdown as the Christmas and New Year holidays approach.

The president's signature ends days of uncertainty in the nation's capital after Congress passed a bipartisan budget plan shortly after a deadline that did not include President-elect Donald Trump's request to raise the debt ceiling.

The legislation keeps government funding at current levels through March 14 and provides $100 billion in natural disaster relief and $10 billion in farm aid for farmers.

In the early hours of Saturday morning, the US Senate approved a spending bill to fund the US government through March.

Both houses of Congress, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives and the Democratic-controlled Senate, had to pass the bill to avoid a partial government shutdown.

The vote in the Senate with 85 votes in favor and 11 against, followed the vote in the House of Representatives, after two failed attempts. The vote in this chamber was 366 in favor and 34 against. All votes against were cast by Republicans.

"We are enthusiastic about this result," Mr Johnson said after the vote, adding that he had spoken to Mr Trump and the president-elect "was also pleased with the result".

House Republicans reached an agreement among themselves on a new proposal earlier Friday. The latest attempt to avoid a government shutdown came after Republicans in Congress failed on Thursday to pass a spending bill backed by Mr. Trump that would have raised the debt ceiling, which the President-elect had requested in last.

Dozens of Republicans voted against Thursday's bill, and only two Democrats supported it. The new plan is the same as the one that failed on Thursday, except for the part about suspending the debt ceiling.

Trouble for Mr Johnson began this week when he abandoned a bipartisan funding deal he had reached with Democrats after Mr Trump and billionaire Elon Musk criticized the plan.

Although the House passed the bill, government funding would have technically expired at midnight on Friday. However, most of the fallout from its shutdown would not take effect until Monday.

The longest government shutdown in U.S. history lasted 34 days, from December 2018 to January 2019, when then-President Trump refused to sign any bill that didn't include several billion dollars for a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico . That effort had the effect of reducing support for him.

Some information for this article was obtained from Reuters and Associated Press agencies./VOA