Biden Signs Final Bill to Fund the Government, Ending Shutdown Fears

President Biden signed a $1.2 trillion spending package on Saturday, putting an end to the prospect of a government shutdown after the legislation passed a rushed series of congressional votes with bipartisan support and landed on his desk just after 2 a.m.

The government faced a potential shutdown if the measure was not signed into law before midnight on Friday. But as the Senate vote ticked past that hour, the White House released a statement saying that federal officials at the Office of Management and Budget had “ceased shutdown preparations” in anticipation of imminent Senate passage and signing by Mr. Biden.

In a statement, the president said that the measure’s approval was “good news for the American people.” But he alluded to the months of drawn-out negotiations that preceded the last-minute approvals, saying that the agreement was “a compromise” and that “neither side got everything it wanted.”

The spending deal “rejects extreme cuts from House Republicans and expands access to child care, invests in cancer research, funds mental health and substance use care, advances American leadership abroad, and provides resources to secure the border that my administration successfully fought to include,” Mr. Biden said.

The 1,012-page legislative package lumped together the remaining six of 12 annual spending bills to fund key parts of the government through September, the end of the fiscal year. It was the culmination of months of painstaking negotiations during which Congress passed four stopgap measures.

Lawmakers wrote the package that Mr. Biden signed on Saturday to comply with the debt and spending deal negotiated last year by the House speaker at the time, Kevin McCarthy, and Mr. Biden. It called for keeping spending on