US Congress approves short-term spending bill as gov't shutdown deadline looms

WASHINGTON - The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a short-term spending bill to avert shutdown as government funding is set to expire in just a few hours, following a Senate approval earlier in the day.

By a vote of 254-175, the lower chamber approved the measure to keep the government funded through Dec. 3, averting a government shutdown at midnight. The Senate voted 65-35 to pass the bill.

The last-minute stopgap funding bill now heads to President Joe Biden's desk.

The Congressional approval of the bill came after days of partisan fight over a debt limit provision, as Democrats had intended to incorporate a suspension of the debt limit into the short-term government spending bill, a move opposed by Republicans.

Republican lawmakers argued that Democrats should do that on their own, since they control both chambers of Congress and the White House, while complaining about a lack of bipartisanship in crafting President Biden's 3.5-trillion-U.S. dollar spending plan.

Senate Republicans previously said that they would support a "clean" stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown, pressuring the Democrats to remove the debt limit provision. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday evening that an agreement had been reached.

"This week in the Senate proved that clumsy partisan jams will not work," Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said on Twitter Thursday afternoon.

"We were able to avoid a shutdown because the Democratic majority accepted reality and listened to what Republicans have consistently said for months. Now they will need to do the same thing on the debt limit," said the Republican leader.

Democrats have the option to raise the debt limit on their own using a process known as budget reconciliation, which only requires a simple majority in the Senate to pass a legislation, but they have argued it's too risky.

"The debt limit has long been a bipartisan issue. And you could talk about times when Democrats or Republicans voted against it in part. But it's very hard to find a time when they said: 'My vote will take down the debt limit.' Democrats have never done that," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a statement Wednesday.