US government has been the point of many puns and jokes in the last few days, thanks to a stalemate between Republicans and Democrats, leading to the shutdown of the US government. Now, both houses of Congress have finally resolved the issue, ending the shutdown.
An agreement was reached upon by both sides on Wednesday. As a result of the consensus, both houses of Congress passed a debt ceiling agreement which was able to muster bipartisan support. The Senate saw 81 votes in favor of the agreement and 18 votes against it whereas the House managed to pull 285 votes in its favor and 144 in opposition.
According to reports, the credit for such bipartisan support for the bill goes to Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell who negotiated the details of the agreement. Speaker Boehner assured that the House would not vote against the bill, ruling the move out as a possible tactic.
The bill now goes to President Obama who will cite his remarks over it. However, many are calling this agreement a temporary relief, which may be true in a sense, given the fact that it raises the debt ceiling to February 2014.
However, as short lived as this relief may be, it has put thousands of federal employees back on their jobs. These employees have been on unpaid leave ever since the US government effectively shut down. A similar standstill is possible yet again when the debt ceiling has to be further raised. But President Obama has assured that a similar shutdown is not going to happen again.
Courtesy: C-Span
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