WASHINGTON • The United States House of Representatives approved another stopgap Bill to keep the federal government from shutting down.
In a further sign of the Republican-controlled Congress' inability to get its most basic work done, the House passed and sent to the Senate on Tuesday a temporary spending Bill to extend most agency funding until March 23.
It was the fifth such stopgap of the federal fiscal year, which began on Oct 1. Stopgaps are needed when Congress fails to approve a full Budget on time by that date. Congress has managed to pass its spending bills on time in only four of the past 40 years, according to congressional researchers.
The Senate was expected to take up the House Bill yesterday and likely change it, requiring it to go back to the House for further action, with a deadline looming today for the Bill to be finished and signed by President Donald Trump.
The Bill's passage came hours after Mr Trump said he would "love" to see a shutdown if immigration legislation were not included. The White House later clarified that it did not expect the Budget deal to include specifics on immigration.
The House Bill does not contain changes to US immigration law, which were a key point of contention in a partisan stand-off that led to a three-day partial shutdown last month.
Senate Democrats were expected to balk at the House Bill's inclusion of an increase in Pentagon funding through Sept 30, the end of the current fiscal year, but exclusion of any increase in non-defence spending.
But Republicans and Democrats said they were making progress on a Budget deal that would set new, higher spending limits for defence and non-defence programmes.
Last month's shutdown came after lawmakers failed to reach agreement on contentious Budget and immigration issues.
That shutdown came after Democrats insisted that any spending Bill must include protections for young immigrants known as"Dreamers" brought to the country illegally as children.
Democrats are not taking that approach this time around and Mr Trump's fellow Republicans, who control both Chambers of Congress, are eager to keep spending and immigration separate.
REUTERS
