US shutdown could be averted with just hours to spare
- US Senate to vote Thursday in bid to avert government shutdown
- Shutdown threat imperiling Joe Biden’s massive domestic agenda
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said lawmakers had reached an agreement to avoid a government shutdown on Friday, extending government spending until December 3.
The legislation, scheduled for a Senate vote Thursday morning Washington time, though important, would resolve perhaps the least of Schumer’s worries.
Federal agencies, pushed to the brink of the end of the financial year, had been preparing for a shutdown of non-essential parts of the government after Senate Democrats failed to push through a stopgap measure that included a suspension of the debt ceiling. Sixty votes are required to proceed on most legislation in the evenly divided Senate.
Stripped of divisive language, the stopgap spending bill should easily pass both chambers. But the threat of a catastrophic default is less than three weeks away and Democrats still have no solution to that problem.
“Now, we are ready to move forward,” Schumer said on the Senate floor Wednesday. “We have an agreement on the CR, the continuing resolution to prevent a government shutdown and we should be voting on that tomorrow morning.”