House lawmakers reached a deal to head off a government shutdown this weekend, but a group of senators could still object, making a partial lapse of some services possible.
House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, announced an agreement to fund the federal government through Feb. 18. Without such a stopgap budget, the government would partially shut down after midnight Friday. The measure also includes $7 billion for Afghanistan refugees.
A vote in the House is expected on Thursday.
It’s unclear how the measure will fare in the Senate, where a group of GOP conservatives has been planning to object to quick consideration of such a stopgap budget without an agreement to deny money to enforce the Biden administration’s vaccine mandate for large companies.
Read more: Biden administration asks court to allow employee vaccine mandate
And see: Congress faces shutdown deadline, hurdles for Biden’s Build Back Better plan
Republicans are not united in threatening a shutdown. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Wednesday “I think we’re going to be OK,” when asked about the prospect of a shutdown.
U.S. stocks traded higher on Thursday morning, in what has become an increasingly volatile market resulting in uncertainty over the spread of coronavirus and a fuzzy path for monetary policy and the U.S. economy.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA,
was recently up 0.8%, while the S&P 500 index
SPX,
added 0.5% and the Nasdaq Composite Index
COMP,
rose 0.4%.
