The Senate voted 81-18 to halt the 16-day government shutdown and raise the U.S. debt limit, moving one step closer to ending the nation’s fiscal impasse.
The House of Representatives began debate at 9:24 p.m. and plans to vote later tonight. The Senate acted the day before U.S. borrowing authority was scheduled to lapse as Congress engaged in its fourth round of fiscal brinkmanship in less than three years.
“Once this agreement arrives on my desk, I will sign it immediately,” President Barack Obama said tonight at the White House. “We’ll begin reopening our government immediately and we can begin to lift this cloud of uncertainty from our businesses and from the American people.”
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