U.S. government
No standstill: Biden signs budget law
US President Joe Biden has signed into law the budget bill that prevents the US government from running out of money. Photo: Patrick Semansky/AP/dpa
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The US government’s interim budget is in effect. A signature by US President Biden has prevented the state from running out of money. Government business is now financed until Tuesday. By then there should be a solution.
US President Joe Biden signed an interim budget into effect, preventing the government from running out of money starting this weekend.
Previously, the funding had only been approved by Congress up to and including Friday. With the law signed on Friday evening (local time), government business will now be financed until Tuesday. Until then, Biden also wants to implement the budget passed by the Senate on Thursday for the remainder of the financial year.
This more than 2,000-page budget law envisages a spending volume of around 1.5 trillion US dollars (1.36 trillion euros), including 13.6 billion dollars for humanitarian and military aid to Ukraine. The budget will be in place until the end of September after Biden signs it.
Without a valid budget passed by Congress, government business in the USA comes to a partial standstill, a so-called shutdown. When this happens, state employees sometimes have to be placed on compulsory leave or work temporarily without pay. Depending on the length of the outage, certain government services could also be restricted or payments delayed.