US Government Shutdown Ends: Midnight Spending Bill Sails Through Senate to Resolve Impasse

Washington, Feb 9: The US House of Representatives reconvened in wee hours of Friday to pass the spending bill in order to avert the government shutdown -- second in the last fortnight.

The spending bill -- a makeshift budgetary allocation -- would extend government funding through March 23. The package approved by a 240-86 House vote, also lifts the federal funding to upto $300 billion over the next two years.

The bill has been sent to US President Donald Trump for his sanction. As per the statement issued by the White House, the President would sign into the law to resolve the financial crisis.

The brief shutdown was caused after Republican Senator Rand Paul objected to the deficit fiscal spending, claiming that the bill would widen the fiscal deficit to an unprecedented level, as it makes no revenue compensation for the $300 billion increase in expenditure.

Paul's back and forth argument on fiscal slippage prevented the Senate from meeting the midnight deadline, which led to the brief shutdown of the government machinery.

The House of Representatives, however, reconvened in the early hours of the day to ensure the federal state operations resume.

Although the impasse has been resolved, analysts say the debate stoked by Senator Paul is likely to serve as the basis of fiscal squabbling between the Democrats and Republicans over the next few months.

According to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, a private fiscal monitoring group, the additional expenditure of $300 billion will  increase the annual budget deficit by $1 trillion in 2019.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 09, 2018 05:59 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).