The President of the United States, Joe Biden has ended the threat of a partial government shutdown as he signed a $1.2 trillion package of spending bills after the United States Congress passed the long overdue legislation just hours earlier.
In the statement on Sunday morning, Biden said; “The bipartisan funding bill I just signed keeps the government open, invests in the American people, and strengthens our economy and national security.”
The White House said Biden signed the legislation at his home in Wilmington, Delaware. It had cleared the Senate by a 74-24 vote shortly after funding had expired for for three-quarters of the government at midnight.
But the White House sent out a notice shortly after the deadline announcing that the Office of Management and Budget had ceased shutdown preparations because there was a high degree of confidence that Congress would pass the legislation and the president would sign it on Saturday.
Africa Today News, New York reports that important federal agencies including the departments of Homeland Security, Justice, State and Treasury, which houses the Internal Revenue Service, will remain funded through September 30 after the bill was passed in the Democratic-majority Senate.
But the measure did not include funding for mostly military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel, which are included in a different Senate-passed bill that the Republican-led House of Representatives has ignored.
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The bill also eliminates US funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) – which provides vital services on the ground to Palestinians in Gaza and across the Middle East – until March 2025.
The agency lost millions of dollars in international support, led by the US, following allegations by Israel that some of its staff in the Gaza Strip were involved in the October 7 Hamas-led attacks.
The House on Friday voted 286-134, narrowly gaining the two-thirds majority needed for approval of the six-bill package which represents the largest and most contentious section of federal funding.
More than 70 percent of the money is set for defence spending, with the bills also covering the military, homeland security, healthcare and other services. Funding for those programmes was set to expire on March 22.
Top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer said it was “a very long and difficult day, but we have just reached an agreement to complete the job of funding the government”.
“It is good for the country that we have reached this bipartisan deal. It wasn’t easy, but tonight our persistence has been worth it,” he added.
It took legislators six months into the current fiscal year to get near the finish line on government funding, the process slowed by conservatives who pushed for more policy mandates and steeper spending cuts than the Democratic-led Senate or White House would consider.
The impasse required several short-term, stopgap spending bills to keep agencies funded.