Biden signs bill to keep government funded and avoid shutdown

President Biden on Saturday night signed a stopgap funding bill, avoiding a government shutdown right before the midnight deadline.

The continuing resolution (CR), passed by both the House and Senate by wide margins earlier in the day, will continue funding the government at its current spending levels into mid-November. It includes $16 billion in disaster relief, but no aid for Ukraine or changes to border policy.

“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 shortly after the Senate passed the CR. “This bill ensures that active-duty troops will continue to get paid, travelers will be spared airport delays, millions of women and children will continue to have access to vital nutrition assistance, and so much more. This is good news for the American people.”

Biden signing the bill into law caps a chaotic few weeks in Congress, and a day full of surprises in the Capitol.

Lawmakers entered Saturday morning largely expecting a shutdown.

But after a failed vote on a GOP stopgap bill Friday, Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) brought up an idea for the “clean” spending bill Saturday morning. It passed the House in a bipartisan 335-91 vote.

“Just moments ago on the House floor we passed by overwhelming numbers the ability to keep government open for the next six weeks,” McCarthy said in a press conference in the wake of the vote.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) praised the work of his party to pass the bill.

“This spending bill was a complete and total victory for the American people. And a total defeat for the extreme MAGA Republicans,” Jeffries said in a press conference.

The bill then overwhelmingly passed the Senate in an 88-9 vote.

Averting a shutdown has major ramifications for government operations and the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

It ensures military service members are paid, that no federal workers will be furloughed, food assistance programs will continue uninterrupted, national parks will remain open and travel will not be impacted.