Congressional leadership cuts bipartisan deal to avert partial government shutdown

Congressional leaders unveiled a bipartisan plan Wednesday to avert a looming partial government shutdown at midnight Saturday.

Under the deal, lawmakers will work to pass a stop-gap resolution to extend the deadline to properly fund the government to March 8 for six of the 12 necessary spending bills and March 22 for the other six.

“We are in agreement that Congress must work in a bipartisan manner to fund our government,” all four congressional leaders and the four top appropriators said in a joint statement Wednesday evening.

Previously Congress had a deadline of March 1 to get the first batch of spending bills done and March 8 to finish off the rest.

The eight leaders also signaled that negotiators came to some sort of understanding on the contours of those first six appropriation bills, without providing specifics.