The U.S. House of Representatives Thursday passed a huge stopgap spending bill to keep the government running through the end of September, avoiding any threat of a government shutdown. The bipartisan 318 to 109 vote sent the measure to President Barack Obama's desk to be signed into law. The measure would fund the day-to-day operating budgets of every Cabinet agency through September 30, provide an additional $87 billion to fund overseas military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and maintain a pay freeze for federal workers. The bill would also leave in place automatic spending cuts of 5 percent to domestic programs and 8 percent to the Pentagon that will mean job furloughs for hundreds of thousands of federal workers but takes steps to erase the impact of those cuts to food inspection and college assistance for active duty military members.
