The US Congress passed an 11th-hour funding bill Saturday to keep federal agencies running for another 45 days and avert a costly government shutdown -- although the deal left out aid to war-torn Ukraine requested by President Joe Biden, reports Daily Sun.
Three hours before the midnight deadline, the Senate voted to keep the lights on through mid-November with a resolution that had advanced earlier from the House of Representatives in a day of high-stakes brinkmanship on Capitol Hill.
The last-ditch "continuing resolution" was pitched by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy as millions of public workers looked set to be sent home unpaid, upending government functions from military operations to food aid to federal policymaking.
"Tonight, bipartisan majorities in the House and Senate voted to keep the government open, preventing an unnecessary crisis that would have inflicted needless pain on millions of hardworking Americans," Biden said in a statement.
But he berated McCarthy and the House Republicans for reneging on spending levels agreed with the White House months ago -- a major reason for the shutdown near-miss -- and for stripping out support for Ukraine.
"I fully expect the speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment," said the president, who signed the measure late Saturday, according to the White House.
The shutdown crisis was largely triggered by a small group of hardline Republicans who had defied their own party leadership to scupper various temporary funding proposals as they pressed for deep spending cuts.
The group of 21 hardliners had threatened to remove McCarthy as speaker if a stopgap measure they opposed was passed with Democrat support, and many Washington watchers were expecting the speaker to have to fight for his job in the coming weeks.
Bd-pratidin English/Tanvir Raihan
