The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday approved another stopgap bill to keep the federal government from shutting down, hours after President Donald Trump said he would "love" to see a shutdown if immigration legislation was not included.
In a further sign of the Republican-controlled Congress' inability to get its most basic work done, the House in a 245-182 vote passed and sent to the Senate a temporary spending bill to extend most agency funding until March 23.
It was the fifth such stopgap of the federal fiscal year, which began Oct. 1. Stopgaps are needed when Congress fails to approve a full budget on time by that date. Congress has managed to pass its spending bills on time in only four of the past 40 years, according to congressional researchers.
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