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(Trends Wide) — The US Senate voted late Thursday to pass a stopgap bill to prevent a government shutdown later this week, with the funds currently scheduled to expire at midnight on Friday.
The vote was 71 to 19.
Now that it has passed the Senate, it can go to President Joe Biden to sign it into law. The House of Representatives approved the measure on Wednesday.
The stopgap measure will extend funding for another week, through Friday, December 23, to give congressional negotiators time to finalize a broader, full-year government funding deal with new major spending levels.
In a sign of progress, top negotiators announced late Tuesday that agreement had been reached on a framework that puts lawmakers on track to complete a comprehensive, year-round government funding package.
Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy said in a statement that he and Ranking Republican Richard Shelby and House Appropriations Committee Chair Rosa DeLauro had “achieved a bipartisan and bicameral framework that should allow us to finish a general appropriations bill that can pass the House and Senate and be signed into law by the president.”
So far, however, negotiators have not provided many details about the deal.
On Wednesday, Shelby said the top line is about $1.7 trillion, but gave no further details. Shelby said the exact allocations to different government agencies are still being negotiated.
The announcement that a framework agreement had been reached for a broader spending bill marked a breakthrough in negotiations, but there is still more work to be done as lawmakers work to finalize the fine print and details of what that the expanding legislation will include.
The expectation on Capitol Hill is that Congress can avoid a shutdown, but congressional leaders have little room for error given the tight schedule they face, so lawmakers are under pressure.
A bipartisan agreement for a year-round government funding deal has proven difficult to secure amid disagreement between the two sides over how much money should be spent on non-defense national priorities.
Republicans are criticizing recent domestic spending by the Democrats, arguing that measures the Democrats have passed while in control of both houses of Congress, such as a $1.9 trillion pandemic relief bill and a health care bill and radical climate, are wasteful and will worsen inflation.
Democrats respond by saying those measures were necessary to help the country recover from the devastating impact of the pandemic, as well as address other critical priorities.
Democratic lawmakers say money to respond to Covid-19, health care and climate should not mean there should be less money next year for government operations and non-defense domestic spending.
