US President Joe Biden signs funding bill, averting shutdown amid Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s removal threat

The stopgap measure, which would keep federal funding going for 45 days, with a freeze on aid to Ukraine, has been approved by the Senate

The vote could cost Kevin McCarthy his job, as Republican hardliners have threatened to remove him as House speaker if the measure passed with Democrat support

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US President Joe Biden signed a stopgap bill to continue funding the US government and avoiding a shutdown. Photo: Bloomberg

Published: 3:50am, 1 Oct 2023Updated: 12:46pm, 1 Oct 2023

The US Congress has passed an 11th-hour funding bill to keep federal agencies running for another 45 days and avert a costly government shutdown – although the deal left out aid to war-torn Ukraine requested by President Joe Biden.

Biden signed the bill late on Saturday night, capping an extraordinary day in Washington that began with the country careening to what appeared to be an inevitable and prolonged federal funding lapse.

“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.

Three hours before the midnight Saturday deadline, the Senate voted to keep the lights on through mid-November with a resolution that had advanced earlier from the House of Representatives in a day of high-stakes brinkmanship on Capitol Hill.

Last gasp moves to prevent a US government shutdown took a dramatic step forward Saturday, as Democrats overwhelmingly backed an eleventh-hour Republican measure to keep federal funding going for 45 days.

US Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R) and Republican Representative of Minnesota Tom Emmer (L) participate in a news conference after the House passed a forty-five day stopgap measure to fund the government. Photo: EPA-EFE

The stopgap measure adopted 335-91 by the House of Representatives was pitched by Speaker Kevin McCarthy with just hours to go before a midnight shutdown deadline that would have seen millions of federal employees and military personnel sent home or required to work without pay.