US Senate votes through last-gasp bill to keep govt open

Washington [US], December 22: The US Congress has averted a government shutdown following days of chaos on Capitol Hill, after the Senate passed a stop-gap funding measure in the early hours of Saturday.
The Senate passed the bill 85-11, with the measure winning support from both parties. The bill had also passed through the House earlier on Friday. It was then signed into law by US President Joe Biden on Saturday.
In a statement, Biden said that "neither side got everything it wanted. But [the bill] rejects the accelerated pathway to a tax cut for billionaires that Republicans sought". Technically Congress missed the midnight deadline to head off the shutdown, but not by enough to cause disruption. The federal government had ceased preparing for a shutdown before the Senate voted and no agencies halted operations, the White House said.
The bill that passed did not include any change to the debt ceiling, despite president-elect Donald Trump's call for lawmakers to use the legislation to scrap the mechanism, which limits the federal government's borrowing.
"After a chaotic few days in the house, it's good news that the bipartisan approach in the end prevailed", Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said from the floor before the vote, calling the stop-gap "a good bill".
Passage of the bill through the two chambers of Congress ended a week of volatility in Washington as Trump and his ally Elon Musk flexed their influence over hardline Republicans, pushing them to reject what they said were "giveaways" to Democrats.
But Democrats also claimed victory, with House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries saying his party had "stopped extreme Maga Republicans from shutting down the government".
He added: "House Democrats have successfully stopped the billionaire boys club, which wanted a $4tn blank cheque by suspending the debt ceiling." The bill's progress appeared uncertain on Friday after Musk expressed his continued disdain for the measure: "So is this a Republican bill or a Democrat bill?" The bill that passed was House Speaker Mike Johnson's third attempt to push the legislation through the chamber after Trump torpedoed the first bipartisan agreement earlier in the week.
The new bill was almost identical to Johnson's second one, but stripped out any move to raise or suspend the debt ceiling, despite Trump's demands.
Source: Qatar Tribune