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What you need to know
- The President Biden has signed into law a bill to prevent a shutdown of the government.
- Stopgap measures are expected to fund the federal government until March, when Republicans take control of the White House and both houses of Congress.
- It was passed with no debt ceiling extension as requested by President-elect Trump.
The President Joe Biden has signed into law a temporary spending bill to avoid an unplanned shutdown and keep federal funding.
Just before Friday’s deadline for the end of the shutdown, the House had reached an agreement with the Senate on a temporary budget. The Senate then approved it early Saturday morning. It is anticipated that the bill will keep federal funding until March, when Republicans are expected to control both chambers of Congress and the White House. Shutdowns usually occur when a party is in control of both the Senate and House of Representatives, or the White House. This happens because they are using the discussions to reach an agreement.
According to law, federal budgets are due on or before October 1, the start of fiscal year. However, lawmakers passed temporary measures extending the deadline to Dec. 20 to allow time for both parties to agree on how Congress should spend its money. It has become a regular occurrence in the last few decades. Budget bills have only been delivered on time four out of 12 times, since 1977.
The deadline was fast approaching despite the fact that lawmakers appeared to have reached a deal on budget last week. The congressional leadership announced on February 2 that they had reached an agreement to fund the federal government until March. However, President-elect Donald Trump and his newly appointed budget advisor, Elon Musk, made statements on social media Thursday that criticized the deal, causing Republicans to pull back.
Trump’s call for a specific debt ceiling increase in the new bill was not included.
UPDATE—Dec. 21 December 2024 This article was updated in order to take into account the events since its first publication.
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