Congress readies votes on bill to avert govt shutdown

The US Congress is set to debate legislation that would extend until May 5 the deadline for a deal on federal spending through September and head off a feared government shutdown at midnight on Friday.

The House Rules Committee, in a late-night meeting, voted 8-2 to send the legislation to the full House of Representatives for debate and votes on passage on Friday, just hours before expiry of a deadline for funding many federal agencies.

If the measure passes the House, as expected, the Senate would be prepared to promptly take up the bill, in the hope of also passing it and sending it to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

The measure would give Republican and Democratic lawmakers an additional week to work out differences on about $1 trillion in funding for the government through Sept. 30, the end of the current fiscal year.

Without the extension or a longer-term funding bill, federal agencies will run out of money by midnight Friday, likely triggering abrupt layoffs of hundreds of thousands of federal government workers until funding resumes.

The last government shutdown, in 2013, lasted for 17 days, and many lawmakers were nerv- ous about the prospect of another.

“I’m confident we will be able to pass a short-term extension” of funding for programs for the fiscal year that began nearly seven months ago, House Speaker Paul Ryan told reporters .

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi warned that the purpose of the stopgap measure was to tie up loose ends of a deal to provide around $1 trillion in money for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30 and not for “kicking the can down the road to have this same back-and-forth” over funding disputes. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen expressed optimism a final funding package will be completed soon.