WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion spending package into law Saturday, with the bill rushing through a series of congressional votes with bipartisan support and reaching the president's desk just after 2 a.m. , ending the prospect of a government shutdown.
If the bill is not signed by midnight Friday, the government could be shut down. But as the Senate vote passed that time, the White House issued a statement saying federal officials at the Office of Management and Budget had “ceased preparations for a shutdown” in anticipation of impending Senate passage and Biden's signature. ” he said.
Biden said in a statement that the bill's approval is “good news for the American people.” But he referred to months of negotiations leading up to the last-minute approval and said the deal was a “compromise” and that “neither side got everything they wanted.”
This spending deal “rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans, expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, and supports U.S. leadership abroad.” and provide resources to secure the border that my administration fought for and succeeded in,” Biden said.
The 1,012-page bill bundles together the remaining six of the 12 annual spending bills that fund key parts of the government through the end of the fiscal year in September. It was the culmination of months of painstaking negotiations in which Congress passed four stopgap measures.
Lawmakers crafted the package Biden signed Saturday to honor a debt and spending agreement he negotiated with then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy last year. It called for spending on domestic programs to remain essentially flat.
Far-right Republicans in the House opposed the bill, but it garnered bipartisan support. After passage was almost certain, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) began the process of seeking a vote to remove House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). In the end, more than half of Republicans voted against the spending bill, which passed by a vote of 286 to 134. The Senate tally was even more lopsided, with 74 votes in favor and 24 against.
Both Democrats and Republicans touted the final bill as a victory. Republicans cited as victories funding for 2,000 new Border Patrol agents, adding detention beds managed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and provisions cutting off aid to the main U.N. agency providing aid to Palestinians. . Democrats, including Biden, have secured increased funding for federal child care and education programs, as well as research into cancer and Alzheimer's disease.
Biden noted that two important bills are still pending in Congress: a border security deal and a foreign aid package that would provide weapons to Israel and Ukraine. The Senate approved the foreign aid package in a bipartisan vote last month, but it faces hostility from House Republicans.
This article was originally published in The New York Times.
