US Senators have reached a deal to advance a major package of spending bills to avert a partial government shutdown that was set to begin on Saturday,
The Guardian reports.
The office of Chuck Schumer, the Senate’s top Democrat, confirmed the deal calls for splitting a funding bill for the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) from a package of other funding bills, and that the deal would fund DHS for two weeks at its current levels.
The deal would avert a partial shutdown that would have affected many of the government’s functions. The House, which is out of session, would have to approve the revised package. The government’s current spending authorizations expire after Friday, while the House in not back until Monday.
In the House, speaker Mike Johnson, told the Associated Press that he had been “vehemently opposed” to breaking up the funding package, but “if it is broken up, we will have to move it as quickly as possible. We can’t have the government shut down.”
“We may inevitably be in a short shutdown situation,” Johnson told reporters later, because the earliest the House will take floor action on funding bills could be Monday. “But the House is going to do its job.”
In a statement on Truth Social, Donald Trump endorsed a spending deal between Senate Democrats and Republicans, writing: “Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security.”
“Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan “YES” Vote,” Trump added.
Democrats had so far refused to back funding for DHS unless it included reforms to federal agents involved in Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
Earlier on Thursday, a key vote intended to head off the partial government shutdown failed in the Senate. However, a Senate aide confirmed that Democrats were negotiating with Republicans on a deal that could result in a short-term measure covering DHS, which oversees Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the US border patrol, while passing other funding bills.
