The US government has narrowly avoided a partial shutdown after senators approved a $460bn package of spending bills before a midnight deadline that would have shuttered many key federal agencies.
The Senate approved the six funding bills, which passed the House on Wednesday in a bipartisan vote of 339-85, on Friday evening, a vote that gets lawmakers about halfway home in wrapping up their appropriations work for the 2024 budget year.
The package now goes to Joe Biden to be signed into law. Meanwhile, lawmakers are negotiating a second package of six bills, including defense, in an effort to have all federal agencies fully funded by a 22 March deadline.
The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 75-22, as the chamber labored to get to a final vote just hours before the midnight deadline.
“To folks who worry that divided government means nothing ever gets done, this bipartisan package says otherwise,” said the senate majority leader Chuck Schumer.
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He said the bill’s passage would allow for the hiring of more air traffic controllers and rail safety inspectors, give federal firefighters a raise and boost support for unhoused veterans, among other things.
Had the shutdown taken effect, funding would have been paused at midnight for the departments of agriculture, commerce, energy, housing and urban development, the interior, justice, transportation and veterans affairs.
A similar short-term shutdown occurred in 2018, and it had little impact on government agencies because it concluded after under six hours.
Senator Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate appropriations committee, took to the Senate floor on Friday to urge her colleagues to support the bills and prevent a shutdown.
“Do we really want a veteran who has bravely and loyally served his country, and is now trying to file a claim for benefits, to find that the Veterans Benefits Administration’s doors are closed to him or her? Is that what we want to have happen?” Collins said. “Why in the world would we want to shut down government and stop serving the American people?”
Collins noted that each of the six bills had been carefully considered by the appropriations committee, so she dismissed some of her colleagues’ complaints that they had not undergone an amendment process.
“I would urge my colleagues to stop playing with fire here. The House, controlled by Republicans, passed these bills as a package – the six bills – with a very strong, bipartisan vote, with the majority of the majority voting for them,” Collins said.
“It would be irresponsible for us not to clear these bills and do the fundamental job that we have of funding government. What is more important?”
