US House passes legislation to keep federal government running

The US House of Representatives yesterday night passed Legislation to keep the federal government running until December 11.

Current federal government funding is slated to run out on September 30, leaving lawmakers just eight days to decide a funding plan to avoid a government shutdown.

House lawmakers passed the Bill with a bipartisan vote of 359-57, hours after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reached an agreement with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Republicans on the so-called continuing resolution (CR) Legislation, the Xinhua news agency reported.

"We have reached an agreement with Republicans on the CR to add nearly $8 billion in desperately needed nutrition assistance for hungry school children and families," Pelosi said earlier Tuesday in a statement.

"We also increase accountability in the Commodity Credit Corporation, preventing funds for farmers from being misused for a Big Oil bailout," she said.

The Senate is likely to vote on the Bill as soon as this week. Both the House and Senate must pass identical versions of the Bill for President Donald Trump to sign it.

The deal on the government funding came as lawmakers remain deadlocked over the next Covid-19 relief package.

"Let's be clear, the fact that we are passing a CR without having already passed an additional Covid stimulus bill represents cruelty and gross incompetence of the highest order," said Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a House Democrat from Florida.

In a statement issued after the US on Tuesday surpassed the grim milestone of 2,00,000 Covid-19 deaths, Pelosi slammed the Trump administration's response to the Covid-19 pandemic, and urged the Republicans to support the House Democrats' $3-trillion relief bill to blunt the economic fallout..