U.S. Senate approves six-month funding bill hours before shutdown deadline

WASHINGTON, March 14 (Xinhua) -- U.S. Senate on Friday approved a stopgap bill that will keep government funding at current levels until September just hours before current funding is set to expire, averting a government shutdown.

The upper chamber voted 54-46 to pass the bill, which was already approved by the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The lower chamber voted 217-213, with the vote largely split along party lines.

The bill will be sent to President Donald Trump to be signed into law.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a Democrat from New York, said earlier this week that Democrats would oppose the stopgap government funding bill passed by the Republican-controlled House, as it included little input from Democrats, but he later changed his stance, stating that he would vote for it. Schumer argued that a shutdown would be a worse outcome.

The last time the U.S. House passed a short-term spending bill was in December 2024, just hours before federal government funding was set to run out. The Senate approved the bill shortly after the midnight deadline. The bill allowed the federal government to maintain current spending levels until March 14.

Government funds are typically supposed to come from annual budget appropriations, and U.S. Congress should usually pass new annual appropriations bills before the start of the new fiscal year on Oct. 1.

However, due to intense partisan conflicts in recent years, agreement is often not reached in time, prompting Congress to repeatedly pass short-term spending bills to temporarily keep the federal government running. ■