US Senate to vote in bid to avert shutdown

The bill is expected to advance from the House of Representatives to Joe Biden’s desk soon after the Senate gives its green light.

Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer arrives at the US Capitol on Wednesday. Picture: AFP

The US Senate will vote on a stopgap funding bill on Thursday night (AEST) to prevent a government shutdown with just hours to spare, as politicians stare down a number of deadlines with massive stakes for the economy and President Joe Biden’s domestic agenda.

The coming days are expected to be the most critical yet of Mr Biden’s presidency as he negotiates the tricky passage of two giant spending bills and a fix to lift the debt ceiling without the support of Republicans.

The most urgent priority is funding for federal agencies, and Senate Democrats say they will pass temporary legislation early on Thursday night, hours before the money runs out, to keep the lights on until December 3.

The bill, which includes $US6.3bn ($8.7bn) to help Afghan refugees and $US28.6bn in dis­aster aid, is expected to have broad cross-party support and should advance from the House of Representatives to Mr Biden’s desk soon after the Senate gives its green light.

“We have agreement on the CR – the continuing resolution – to prevent the government shutdown. And we should be voting on that tomorrow morning,” Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer said late on Wednesday.

Shutdowns typically mean hundreds of thousands of government employees being sent home as federal services and properties close. There has never been a shutdown during a national emergency such as the pandemic, but the Congressional Budget Office estimates the 2018-19 stoppage wiped $US11bn from the economy.

With the threat of the shutdown off the table, the Democrat leadership would be free to focus on raising the debt ceiling and passing Mr Biden’s sputtering domestic agenda — a $US1.2 trillion infrastructure plan and a $US3.5 trillion spending plan. The bills are central to his legacy, but both risk failing because of feuding between the Democrats’ progressive and centrist factions.

In a sign of the jitters unsettling the West Wing, Mr Biden ­cancelled a Wednesday trip to Chicago, instead staying in Washington to lobby holdouts ahead of an uncertain house vote on infrastructure. Legislators were due to deliver their verdicts on that bill on Thursday although even that looked increasingly unlikely with the leftist grouping and the ­moderates miles apart on a path forward.

The White House regularly points to polling showing Mr Biden’s legislative priorities are broadly popular, although less so in some key swing districts.

Congress is deadlocked over the prospect of a first-ever US debt default that would erase an estimated six million jobs and wipe out $US15 trillion of household wealth, tanking the economy. The government is likely to run out of cash on October 18, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has warned, unless congress raises the federal borrowing cap.

Republicans say they won’t help, despite having pressed for hikes under former president Don­ald Trump, because they want no part in the Democrats’ historically large package of social reforms. The house passed a “continuing resolution” to keep funding available but the Senate shot down the plan on Monday, with Republicans objecting to a debt ceiling hike that was included in the wording.

Republicans then blocked an effort by Senate Democrats to lift the debt ceiling by a majority vote.

Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell accused the Democrats of attempting to “drain money from people’s pockets (and) spend it on socialism”.

“They want to print and borrow trillions of dollars, and then set it on fire,” he said.

The Democrat-led house passed a stand-alone bill to suspend the debt ceiling until December 16 next year, with support from just one Republican, but it is doomed to fail in the Senate with no backing from the opposition.

AFP