Biden signs stopgap spending bill to avert govt shutdown- White House

[November 17, 2023]  SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) -U.S. President Joe Biden signed on Thursday a stopgap spending bill to avert a government shutdown, a day after the Senate passed it, the White House said. 

Biden signed the document on the sidelines of a dinner at the Legion of Honor museum in San Francisco, where leaders are attending the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks during the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) Leaders event at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) CEO Summit in San Francisco, California, U.S. November 16, 2023. REUTERS/Brittany Hosea-Small

The Senate's 87-11 vote on Wednesday marked the end of this year's third fiscal standoff in Congress that saw lawmakers bring Washington to the brink of defaulting on its more than $31 trillion in debt this spring and twice within days of a partial shutdown that would have interrupted pay for about 4 million federal workers.

U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson had produced the stopgap funding bill that drew broad bipartisan support, a rarity in modern U.S. politics. Democrats said they were happy it stuck to spending levels that had been set in a May agreement with Biden and did not include poison-pill provisions on abortion and other hot-button social issues.

(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Gokul Pisharody ; Editing by Clarence Fernandez and Kim Coghill)

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