The Senate avoided a government shutdown with less than an hour to spare

(Image credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

published 10 December 2016

The Senate approved a short-term measure to fund the federal government until April 28 with a Friday evening vote that avoided a shutdown deadline by less than an hour. The bill passed 63-36 after Senate Democrats from coal-heavy states dropped an objection pertaining to health care for retired miners.

President Obama signed the funding measure early Saturday morning, completing the Senate's major business for 2016. Also early on Saturday, the Senate passed a water bill providing $170 million in aid to Flint, Michigan, which has suffered seriously contaminated tap water for nearly two years.

The close of this year's legislative season marks the end of Sen. Mitch McConnell's first term as Senate majority leader, which McConnell (R-Ky.) referenced before the funding vote. "This Congress, the Senate has passed nearly 300 bills, and nearly 200 of those are now law," he said. "But what really matters isn't the number of bills passed. It's what we can achieve on behalf of the American people. And by that standard, I'm incredibly proud of what we've been able to accomplish for our country."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.