Biden signs stopgap funding bill to avoid shutdown
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The resolution finances the government until March 15, buying time for a $1.5 trillion federal spending package to go through.
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Biden recently signed the "Further Additional Extending Government Funding Act" (AP)
In order to prevent a government shutdown, US President Joe Biden signed legislation on Friday to finance federal government operations in the near term.
The continuing resolution approved by Biden finances the government until March 15, allowing time for a massive $1.5 trillion federal spending package to reach Biden's desk.
Late Thursday, the Senate cleared the continuing resolution and the bigger appropriations package, which supports the government through September and contains billions of dollars in aid for Ukraine. But the larger legislation takes time to go from Capitol Hill to the White House, while the government's financing was slated to expire on Friday at midnight, necessitating the continuing resolution.
Next Monday, Biden is expected to sign the $1.5 trillion funding measure.
After months of talks, that law was unveiled this week after passing with bipartisan support in the House on Wednesday and the Senate the next day.
The 2,741-page bill supports the government for the remainder of the fiscal year and contains $13.6 billion in "humanitarian and security aid" to handle Russia's continuing military operation in Ukraine.
However, COVID-19 pandemic funds, which the White House had requested for its pandemic response, were removed from the bill due to a squabble among House Democrats. The White House has cautioned that if extra COVID-19 money is not authorized, pandemic-related activities will suffer.
"We thank leaders in the House and Senate for their partnership in getting this bill done, and the President looks forward to signing it into law,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki stated late Thursday, adding that “At the same time, we continue to call on Congress to provide the funds urgently needed to prevent severe disruptions to our COVID response."
On Wednesday, US senators approved nearly $14 billion in aid for Ukraine, as part of a massive plan to finance federal agencies and prevent a catastrophic government shutdown.
Biden signed HR 6617 into law, also known as the "Further Additional Extending Government Funding Act," providing the fiscal year 2022 appropriations to Federal agencies through March 11, allowing the Federal Government to continue its projects and activities.
The US economy in crisis
In 2019, a deal was reached between the Democrats and Republicans, represented by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and then-Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, that eased a bipartisan vote to lift the debt ceiling.
This authorized further borrowing and spending by the government, which at the time reached the limit of $22 trillion.
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The cost of the US war on Afghanistan
Furthermore, the Pentagon, which has $3 trillion in assets and a record current 2021 budget of $738 billion, failed its audit for the third consecutive year in November.
An army of 1400 auditors hired by US taxpayers for $230 million and borrowed from some of the country's largest auditing firms spent the past year poring over the books and visiting hundreds of operations of the government's largest and geographically vast single agency, and returned with the news that they couldn't give it a pass, according to Dave Lindorff, a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist.
The journalist went on to say that the US military, which consumes nearly half of the US $1.6 trillion discretionary budget, is a “financial black hole”.
