President Donald Trump Signs Bill Preventing Shutdown After Brief Funding Lapse

By webmanager, The Hill 1st Oct 20 10:19 am

© Getty Images Trump signs bill averting shutdown after brief funding lapse

 

President Trump signed legislation early Thursday morning funding the federal government through early December, preventing a shutdown after allowing government funding to lapse briefly.

President Trump didn’t sign the bill that passed in the House last week and in the Senate on Wednesday, until after returning from a rally in Minnesota after midnight.

The White House told agencies not to shut down even though legal funding ran out at midnight because Trump was expected to sign it quickly upon his return.

The bill that passed in the House last week, as well as in the Senate earlier Wednesday evening represented a rare moment of bipartisan cooperation in the bitter run-up to the election.

Democrats, as well as Republicans, have birthday clashed over a fifth coronavirus relief bill and the GOP plan to confirm Amy Coney Barrett to fill the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Supreme Court seat ahead of the election.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin agreed to keep the government funding question separate from the COVID-19 negotiations. They agreed to add restrictions over its use, barring payments to fossil fuel refiners and importers, and adding $8 billion to nutrition assistance programs.

With the provisional spending bill ended, lawmakers will try to complete work on the 12 annual appropriations bills for fiscal 2021 in the post-election lame-duck session in November and December.

Although the House passed 10 of the 12 bills with party-line votes earlier in the summer, the Senate has not yet to unveil a single bill amid infighting over hot button problems, including police reform and coronavirus relief.

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