The United States is moving closer to ending its record-breaking government shutdown after the Senate took a critical step towards ending its five-week impasse.
The upper chamber of Congress on Monday night approved a spending package by a vote of 60 to 40 to fund the US government through January 30 and reinstate pay for hundreds of thousands of federal workers.
The spending bill next moves to the House of Representatives for approval and then on to President Donald Trump for his signature before the shutdown can finally end.
House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he would like to pass it as soon as Wednesday and called for legislators to immediately return to Washington, DC, to take part in the vote.
The vote in the Senate follows negotiations this weekend that saw seven Democrats and one independent agree to move the updated spending package to end the shutdown, which enters its 42nd day on Tuesday, to a debate and a vote.
Also included in the deal are three-year appropriations for the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration, military construction projects, veterans affairs and congressional operations.
The deal does not, however, resolve one of the most central issues of the shutdown – extending healthcare subsidies that benefit 24 million Americans under the Affordable Care Act.
Instead, the Senate Republicans only agreed to hold a vote on the issue by December.
Analysts said this means there could be another shutdown in January.
“The deal that they’ve reached means most of the government will shut down again in January if they can’t come to another agreement, so this is just a stopgap arrangement,” said David Smith, an associate professor at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre.
Credit: aljazeera.com
