The US House of Representatives on Thursday approved a second round of stopgap funds to keep federal agencies operating through December 14, giving Democrats in Congress and Republican President George W. Bush more time to avoid a government shutdown.
The temporary funds were included in a fiscal 2008 military spending bill that passed by a vote of 400-15. Six weeks into the new fiscal year, none of the 12 regular spending bills have been signed into law. Bush has threatened to veto 10 of them. To avoid a government shutdown that would have otherwise resulted, Congress in late September passed a similar measure that expires on November 16.
With no visible progress toward settling Democratic-Republican differences over spending priorities, the second stopgap bill basically extends for another month last year's funding levels for programs ranging from food aid to the poor to domestic secur hurricanes in the US Gulf Coast and $2.9 billion for a federal disaster relief fund.
Veterans medical care also would get an added $2.9 billion, as Bush requested, but $3.7 billion below what Democrats have been seeking in a year-long Veterans Administration funding bill. And Californians who recently suffered wildfires in the southern part of the state, there is $500 million.