Congress approves government funding bill hours before midnight deadline to avert shutdown

Congress on Thursday approved a measure to fund the government into early December, staving off a shutdown that was set to occur after midnight.

The votes in the House and Senate followed weeks of hand wringing between the two parties, after Democrats initially sought to move the measure along with another proposal to raise the country’s debt ceiling. Senate Republicans blocked that effort, leaving the country’s ability to borrow unresolved just 18 days before the next major fiscal deadline.

The funding stopgap sustains federal agencies’ existing spending until December 3, at which point Congress must adopt another short-term fix, called a continuing resolution, or pass a dozen appropriations bills that fund federal agencies through the 2022 fiscal year.

The new measure also includes billions of dollars to assist in responding to two recent, deadly hurricanes that battered the Gulf Coast and Eastern Seaboard, as well as other money to aid in resettling refugees arriving from Afghanistan.