US government shutdown averted as Senate passes spending bill
The US has averted a government shutdown after the Senate passed a Republican-led measure to keep the government funded for the next six months.
The stopgap funding bill passed in the Senate 54-46, as two Democrats joined all but one Republican senator in voting yes. President Donald Trump must now sign it into law before the Friday midnight deadline.
The key vote came earlier when some Senate Democrats, after fierce debate, allowed the measure to pass a procedural hurdle.
The Senate minority leader, Democrat Chuck Schumer, and nine others broke with their colleagues to vote to advance the bill to its final Friday evening vote.
Two Democrats – Senator Jeanne Shaheen and Independent Senator Angus King of Maine – voted in favour of its final passage. Schumer voted “no”.
On Thursday, he announced he would vote to allow the measure to move forward, saying although it wasn’t a bill he liked, he believed triggering a shutdown would be a worse result.
Representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez called Schumer’s willingness to let the spending bill proceed a “huge slap in the face”, adding that there is a “wide sense of betrayal” among the party, according to the BBC’s US partner CBS News.
She said supporting the bill “codifies the chaos and the reckless cuts that Elon Musk has been pursuing”, and that Senate Democrats who voted yes would be empowering “the robbing of our federal government in order to finance tax cuts for billionaires”.
The Democrats had agonised over whether to support the measure, and eventually pushed for a 30-day continuing resolution that was unlikely to earn enough support to pass.
Senator Ted Cruz accused the Democrats of conducting “political theater” and praised the bill’s passage.
“The government is funded, let’s get back to work,” he said in a statement.
The passage is a victory for Trump and congressional Republicans.
On Friday morning, Trump offered rare bipartisan praise of Schumer’s decision to let the bill advance, writing that “a non pass would be a Country destroyer, approval will lead us to new heights”.
The legislation would keep much of the federal funding levels from the Biden Administration in place, with some key changes.
It increases military spending by $6bn (£4.6bn), for items like border security, veterans healthcare, and military spending. But would cut non-defence funding by about $13bn.
Local officials in Washington DC had feared the bill would result in a $1bn cut in federal funds for the city over the next six months. However, the Senate approved a separate bill that kept its current operating budget intact, the New York Times reported.
