WASHINGTON: US President Joe Biden has welcomed an agreement to avoid a government shutdown but called for Congress to quickly pass on aid to Ukraine following it was left out of the deal, US media reported on Saturday.
Biden welcomes agreement to avoid government shutdown
In a statement, the US President said, “I expect the Speaker of the US House of Representatives will keep his resolve to the people of Ukraine and also secure passage of the support needed to assist Kyiv at this serious moment,”.
The statement comes as the US Congress passed a stopgap funding bill Saturday in a rare show of cross-party unity to keep federal departments running for the next 45 days and avert a harmful government shutdown. The Democratic-dominated Senate voted 88-9 to approve the measure to avert the federal government’s fourth partial shutdown in a decade, sending it to the US President to sign into law before the 0401 GMT deadline.
Earlier last-gasp moves to avoid a US government shutdown took an unexpected step forward Saturday, as Democrat lawmakers overwhelmingly supported an eleventh-hour Republican measure to keep government funding going for the next 45 days, although with a freeze on help to Kyiv.
The stopgap suggestion adopted by the US House of Representatives with a vote of 335-91 was pitched by Kevin McCarthy just before a midnight shutdown deadline that would have seen millions of federal government staff and army personnel sent home. The agreement still has to be passed by the Democrat-dominated Senate.
US Government Shutdown Averted
CNN quoted a government official as saying the Biden administration would likely back the bill to keep the government open with the hope of being in a position to restore Ukraine help later.
The government shutdown crisis was mostly activated by a small group of hardline Republican lawmakers who had defied their own party leadership to ruin various provisional funding suggestions as they pressed for huge spending cuts.
Saturday’s deal could end up costing Kevin McCarthy his job, as hardliner Republicans had threatened to eliminate him as speaker of the House if a substitute step, they opposed was approved with Democrat support.
Read Also: US Government Shutdown Averted
Pitching his proposal, the speaker had urged both Democrats and Republicans to “put your partisanship away” and rejected the threat to his office. He said, “If somebody wishes to remove him go ahead and try”.
The suggested plan would keep the federal government funded at present levels without the hardline-backed spending reduction. However, the lack of help for Kyiv was problematic.
Funding and arming Kyiv in its desperate war against Moscow invasion has been a major policy slat for Biden’s administration and, while the substitute is only provisional, it does increase queries over the political feasibility of renewing the assistance.
