Congress Clears Government Funding Bill to Avert Shutdown

The House passed a nine-week spending bill to avert a U.S. government shutdown hours before it was set to begin on an 254 to 175 vote. The legislation passed the Senate earlier Thursday and now heads to President Joe Biden’s desk.

The bill passed both chambers after Democrats dropped an earlier attempt to attach a debt-ceiling suspension to the bill in face of implacable Republican opposition to that measure. GOP senators blocked a version of the bill containing the debt ceiling language on Monday.

The federal government would be kept open through Dec. 3 under the legislation. The bill also contains $28.6 billion for states recovering from hurricanes and wildfires as well as $6.3 billion to resettle refugees from the U.S. war in Afghanistan.

Republicans said the last minute stopgap vote was the fault of Democrats who had tried to tie the bill to the debt ceiling last week.

“We did not need to be in the place just hours before the deadline,” said Appropriations Committee top Republican Kay Granger of Texas said on the House floor, noting she had voted against the bill last week over the debt issue.

House Appropriations Committee Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut said Republicans are threatening the economy to play politics on the debt ceiling.

“This is not about as some of colleagues would like to say about paying for spending going forward. This is about paying for the past,” she said. “Now is the time for us to raise the debt ceiling in order to do that.”