The Senate has approved a short-term spending bill that would extend government funding into early next year.
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Nathan Howard/Getty Images
The Senate has approved a short-term spending bill that would extend government funding into early next year.
Nathan Howard/Getty Images
The Senate overwhelmingly passed a stopgap spending bill ahead of Friday’s deadline, with a final vote of 87-11.
The House-passed bill now goes to President Biden for his signature.
The unusual legislation provides funding for four federal agencies until January 19, 2024, and funding for the remaining agencies until February 2, 2024. The goal is to give Congress more time to negotiate long-term spending bills. If this is not achieved, across-the-board spending cuts will hit all agencies by 1% in April. So far, the House of Representatives has passed seven bills and the Senate has approved three.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, chose this approach to appeal to a group of House conservatives hoping to use the rolling deadline to force spending concessions. But conservatives who proposed the plan voted against the bill in the House of Representatives earlier this week as a stopgap measure that failed to cut spending.
House Republicans are deeply divided over spending, and their internal bickering has threatened Johnson’s promise to pass a full-year spending bill next year. Republicans have been unable to pass several strictly partisan spending bills for weeks so far.