Senate Passes Bill to Fund Gov't Through Sept.

The federal government may yet survive — just in case you had any doubts. The Senate passed Wednesday a bill that would keep funding the government through the end of September, avoiding what had been a potential government shutdown at the end of March. By a vote of 73 to 26, lawmakers approved the bipartisan budget legislation, also known as the continuing resolution or "CR." The bill next heads over to the House of Representatives, which will take it up Thursday, just as it votes on Rep. Paul Ryan's budget. (On Wednesday, meanwhile, the House voted down five alternatives to that budget.) The Republican-controlled House is expected to pass the Senate's CR, even though it has already passed its own GOP version. Next on the Senate's agenda, meanwhile: Beginning to reconcile its own budget proposal with the House's, ahead of a mid-May deadline to raise the U.S. borrowing limit.

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