by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Makini Brice
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The US Congress overwhelmingly adopted a $1.2 trillion budget on Saturday, providing funding for the federal government until the end of the fiscal year. started six months ago.
This finance bill, adopted by 74 votes to 24, was signed later in the day by President Joe Biden, which will thus avoid a partial closure of main federal agencies, such as the departments of Homeland Security or even the Justice.
On the other hand, this budget does not provide funding for military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan or Israel, which appears in another bill adopted by the Senate but which has still not been submitted to the vote of the House of Representatives, where the Republicans are in the majority.
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The federal budget was approved after lengthy negotiations in the Senate that pushed passage of the bill past the midnight Friday deadline.
The 1,012-page bill provides $886 billion in funding for the Defense Department, including increased spending on U.S. troops.
Over the last six months, the federal government has been financed by four short-term palliative measures, due to lack of consensus in Congress on financing, a situation which has put the rating agencies on alert.
The last “shutdown” of federal authorities took place under the presidency of Donald Trump, between December 22, 2018 and January 25, 2019. The Republican camp then demanded funding to build a wall along the United States border with the Mexico, a project that Democratic elected officials opposed.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan, David Morgan and Makini Brice, with contributions from Doina Chiacu, Blandine Hénault and Tangi Salaün for the French version)
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