Congress Passes Stopgap Spending Bill to Keep Agencies From Closing

Congress sent a temporary spending bill to the White House on Wednesday to keep government agencies from shutting down and falling victim to Congress’ inability to finish its budget business on time.

On a 296-122 vote, the House sent the measure to the Senate, which later adopted the measure on a voice vote. President Bush was expected to sign the bill.

The legislation provides money to keep federal programs functioning through Monday. Otherwise, their spending authority would have expired at the end of business Wednesday.

The stopgap measure is necessary because lawmakers have failed to finish the package of 13 annual spending bills for fiscal 1990, which began Oct. 1.

So far, five of the bills have been signed into law; two have been vetoed by Bush; four are on the President’s desk awaiting his signature, and Congress is working on two others.

“At times it seems like we’ve been assigned the task of rolling rocks up a hill, only to have those rocks roll back,” said Rep. Silvio O. Conte of Massachusetts, ranking Republican on the House Appropriations Committee.